Text -- Jeremiah 2:1-9 (NET)

The Lord Recalls Israel’s Earlier Faithfulness

2:1 The Lord spoke to me. He said: 2:2 “Go and declare in the hearing of the people of Jerusalem: ‘This is what the Lord says: “I have fond memories of you, how devoted you were to me in your early years. I remember how you loved me like a new bride; you followed me through the wilderness, through a land that had never been planted. 2:3 Israel was set apart to the Lord; they were like the first fruits of a harvest to him. All who tried to devour them were punished; disaster came upon them,” says the Lord.’”

The Lord Reminds Them of the Unfaithfulness of Their Ancestors

2:4 Now listen to what the Lord has to say, you descendants of Jacob, all you family groups from the nation of Israel. 2:5 This is what the Lord says: “What fault could your ancestors have possibly found in me that they strayed so far from me? They paid allegiance to worthless idols, and so became worthless to me. 2:6 They did not ask: ‘Where is the Lord who delivered us out of Egypt, who brought us through the wilderness, through a land of desert sands and rift valleys, through a land of drought and deep darkness, through a land in which no one travels, and where no one lives?’ 2:7 I brought you into a fertile land so you could enjoy its fruits and its rich bounty. But when you entered my land, you defiled it; you made the land I call my own loathsome to me. 2:8 Your priests did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord?’ Those responsible for teaching my law did not really know me. Your rulers rebelled against me. Your prophets prophesied in the name of the god Baal. They all worshiped idols that could not help them.

The Lord Charges Contemporary Israel with Spiritual Adultery

2:9 “So, once more I will state my case against you,” says the Lord. “I will also state it against your children and grandchildren.

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Wesley: Jer 2:2

From Anathoth to Jerusalem.

Wesley: Jer 2:2

I remind thee of the kindness that was between us.

Wesley: Jer 2:2

When I entered into covenant with thee at the giving of the law.

Wesley: Jer 2:2

I took such care of thee, in the howling wilderness, a land that was not sown.

Wesley: Jer 2:3

A people dedicated to God.

Wesley: Jer 2:3

As the first fruits were holy to God, so was Israel.

Wesley: Jer 2:3

All that were injurious to him.

Wesley: Jer 2:3

Were liable to punishment.

Wesley: Jer 2:3

Evil was inflicted on them from the Lord, as upon the Egyptians, Amalekites, Midianites, Canaanites.

Wesley: Jer 2:5

Idols.

Wesley: Jer 2:5

Fools; senseless as the stocks and stones that they made their idols of.

Wesley: Jer 2:6

They never concerned themselves about what God had done for them, which should have engaged them to cleave to him.

Wesley: Jer 2:6

Where they had no water but by miracle.

Wesley: Jer 2:6

Bringing forth nothing that might support life, therefore nothing but death could be expected; and besides, yielding so many venomous creatures, as many enemies that they went in continual danger of.

Wesley: Jer 2:6

As having in it no accommodation for travellers, much less for habitation.

Wesley: Jer 2:7

Consecrated to my name; by your idols and many other abominations.

Wesley: Jer 2:8

They that should have taught others, knew as little as they, or regarded as little, who are said here to handle the law, the priests and Levites, who were the ordinary teachers of the law.

Wesley: Jer 2:8

Either teachers, or kings and princes.

Wesley: Jer 2:8

They that should have taught the people the true worship of God, were themselves worshippers of Baal.

Wesley: Jer 2:9

By his judgments, and by his prophets, as he did with their fathers, that they may be left without excuse.

Wesley: Jer 2:9

God often visits the iniquities of the parents upon the children, when they imitate their parents.

JFB: Jer 2:2

Proclaim.

JFB: Jer 2:2

The headquarters and center of their idolatry; therefore addressed first.

JFB: Jer 2:2

Rather, "I remember in regard to thee" [HENDERSON]; "for thee" [MAURER].

JFB: Jer 2:2

Not so much Israel's kindness towards God, as the kindness which Israel experienced from God in their early history (compare Eze 16:8, Eze 16:22, Eze 16:60; Eze 23:3, Eze 23:8, Eze 23:19; Hos 2:15). For Israel from the first showed perversity rather than kindness towards God (compare Exo 14:11-12; Exo 15:24; Exo 32:1-7, &c.). The greater were God's favors to them from the first, the fouler was their ingratitude in forsaking Him (Jer 2:3, Jer 2:5, &c.).

JFB: Jer 2:2

The intervals between Israel's betrothal to God at the exodus from Egypt, and the formal execution of the marriage contract at Sinai. EWALD takes the "kindness" and "love" to be Israel's towards God at first (Exo 19:8; Exo 24:3; Exo 35:20-29; Exo 36:5; Jos 24:16-17). But compare Deu 32:16-17; Eze 16:5-6, Eze 16:15, Eze 16:22 ("days of thy youth") implies that the love here meant was on God's side, not Israel's.

JFB: Jer 2:2

The next act of God's love, His leading them in the desert without needing any strange god, such as they since worshipped, to help Him (Deu 2:7; Deu 32:12). Jer 2:6 shows it is God's "leading" of them, not their following after God in the wilderness, which is implied.

JFB: Jer 2:3

That is, was consecrated to the service of Jehovah (Exo 19:5-6). They thus answered to the motto on their high priest's breastplate, "Holiness to the Lord" (Deu 7:6; Deu 14:2, Deu 14:21).

JFB: Jer 2:3

That is, of Jehovah's produce. As the first-fruits of the whole produce of the land were devoted to God (Exo 23:19; Num 18:12-13), so Israel was devoted to Him as the first-fruit and representative nation among all nations. So the spiritual Israel (Jam 1:18; Rev 14:4).

JFB: Jer 2:3

Carrying on the image of first-fruits which were eaten before the Lord by the priests as the Lord's representatives; all who ate (injured) Jehovah's first-fruits (Israel), contracted guilt: for example, Amalek, the Amorites, &c., were extirpated for their guilt towards Israel.

JFB: Jer 2:3

Rather, "came."

JFB: Jer 2:4

The whole nation.

JFB: Jer 2:4

(See on Jer 1:15). Hear God's word not only collectively, but individually (Zec 12:12-14).

JFB: Jer 2:5

Wrong done to them (Isa 5:4; Mic 6:3; compare Deu 32:4).

JFB: Jer 2:5

Contrasted with "walkest after me in the wilderness" (Jer 2:2): then I was their guide in the barren desert; now they take idols as their guides.

JFB: Jer 2:5

An idol is not only vain (impotent and empty), but vanity itself. Its worshippers acquire its character, becoming vain as it is (Deu 7:26; Psa 115:8). A people's character never rises above that of its gods, which are its "better nature" [BACON] (2Ki 17:15; Jon 2:8).

JFB: Jer 2:6

The very words which God uses (Isa 63:9, Isa 63:11, Isa 63:13), when, as it were, reminding Himself of His former acts of love to Israel as a ground for interposing in their behalf again. When they would not say, Where is Jehovah, &c., God Himself at last said it for them (compare see on Jer 2:2).

JFB: Jer 2:6

The desert between Mount Sinai and Palestine abounds in chasms and pits, in which beasts of burden often sink down to the knees. "Shadow of death" refers to the darkness of the caverns amidst the rocky precipices (Deu 8:15; Deu 32:10).

JFB: Jer 2:7

Literally, "a land of Carmel," or "well-cultivated land": a garden land, in contrast to the "land of deserts" (Jer 2:6).

JFB: Jer 2:7

By idolatries (Jdg 2:10-17; Psa 78:58-59; Psa 106:38).

JFB: Jer 2:7

Change to the second person from the third, "they" (Jer 2:6), in order to bring home the guilt to the living generation.

JFB: Jer 2:8

The three leading classes, whose very office under the theocracy was to lead the people to God, disowned Him in the same language as the nation at large, "Where is the Lord?" (See Jer 2:6).

JFB: Jer 2:8

Whose office it was to expound the law (Mal 2:6-7).

JFB: Jer 2:8

Are occupied with the law as the subject of their profession.

JFB: Jer 2:8

Civil, not religious: princes (Jer 3:15), whose duty it was to tend their people.

JFB: Jer 2:8

Who should have reclaimed the people from their apostasy, encouraged them in it by pretended oracles from Baal, the Phœnician false god.

JFB: Jer 2:8

In his name and by his authority (compare Jer 11:21).

JFB: Jer 2:8

Answering to, "walked after vanity," that is, idols (Jer 2:5; compare Jer 2:11; Hab 2:18).

JFB: Jer 2:9

Namely, by inflicting still further judgments on you.

JFB: Jer 2:9

Three manuscripts and JEROME omit "children's"; they seem to have thought it unsuitable to read "children's children," when "children" had not preceded. But it is designedly so written, to intimate that the final judgment on the nation would be suspended for many generations [HORSLEY]. (Compare Eze 20:35-36; Mic 6:2).

Clarke: Jer 2:2

I remember thee - The youth here refers to their infant political state when they came out of Egypt; they just then began to be a people. Their espousals refer to their receiving the law at Mount Sinai, which they solemnly accepted, Exo 24:6-8, and which acceptance was compared to a betrothing or espousal. Previously to this they were no people, for they had no constitution nor form of government. When they received the law, and an establishment in the Promised Land, then they became a people and a nation

Clarke: Jer 2:2

Wentest after me - Receivedst my law, and wert obedient to it; confiding thyself wholly to my guidance, and being conscientiously attached to my worship. The kindness was that which God showed them by taking them to be his people, not their kindness to him.

Clarke: Jer 2:3

Israel was holiness unto the Lord - Fully consecrated to his service

Clarke: Jer 2:3

The first fruits of his increase - They were as wholly the Lord’ s, as the first fruits were the property of the priests according to the law Num 18:13. These the priests alone had a right to devote to their own use

Clarke: Jer 2:3

All that devour him shall offend - As they were betrothed to the Lord, they were considered his especial property; they therefore who injured them were considered as laying violent hands on the property of God. They who persecute God’ s children have a grievous burden to bear, an awful account to give.

Clarke: Jer 2:5

What iniquity have your fathers found in me - Have they ever discovered any thing cruel, unjust, oppressive in my laws? Any thing unkind or tyrannical in my government? Why then have they become idolaters?

Clarke: Jer 2:6

Through the wilderness - Egypt was the house of their bondage: the desert through which they passed after they came out of Egypt, was a place where the means of life were not to be found; where no one family could subsist, much less a company of 600, 000 men. God mentions these things to show that it was by the bounty of an especial providence that they were fed and preserved alive. Previously to this, it was a land through which no man passed, and in which no man dwelt. And why? because it did not produce the means of life; it was the shadow of death in its appearance, and the grave to those who committed themselves to it.

Clarke: Jer 2:7

And I brought you into a plentiful country - The land of Canaan

Clarke: Jer 2:7

My land - The particular property of God, which he gave to them as an inheritance, they being his peculiar people.

Clarke: Jer 2:8

They that handle the law - ותפשי vethophe shey , they that draw out the law; they whose office it is to explain it, draw out its spiritual meanings, and show to what its testimonies refer

Clarke: Jer 2:8

The pastors also - Kings, political and civil rulers

Clarke: Jer 2:8

Prophesied by Baal - Became his prophets, and were inspired with the words of lying spirits.

Clarke: Jer 2:9

I will yet plead with you - אריב arib , I will maintain my process, vindicate my own conduct, and prove the wickedness of yours.

Calvin: Jer 2:2

God now mentions to his servant the commands which he was to convey to the king and priests, and to the whole people; for by the ears of Jerusalem he means all its inhabitants. God here intimates that the Jews were unworthy of being cared for by him any more; but that he is induced by another reason not to reject them wholly, until he had found out by experience their irreclaimable wickedness. So then he makes this preface, I remember thee for the kindness of thy youth, and the love of thy espousals In these words he shews that he regarded not what the Jews deserved, nor acknowledged any worthiness in them, as the reason why he was solicitous for their salvation, and endeavored to bring them to the right way by the labors of his Prophet, but that this is to be ascribed to his former benefits.

Some render the words, “I remember the piety or kindness of thy youth;” and לך l a k, may be thus taken, as it is in other places. Others omit this word; while others consider a copulative to be understood, “I remember thee, and the kindness of thy youth.” But none, as I think, have attained to the meaning of the Prophet: there is yet no obscurity in the words, if a preposition be considered as being understood, so as to read thus, — that God remembered his people for the kindness which he had shewn to them, and for the love which he had manifested towards them from the beginning. Then the real meaning of the Prophet I think to be this, — that God here takes away every ground for pride and boasting from the Jews; as though he had said, that they were worthy, they had no reason to think; but that he was still their Father, and was therefore unwilling that the benefits he had formerly conferred upon them should be wholly lost. There is, in short, given here a reason why God sent Jeremiah after the other prophets; as though he had said, “It is a testimony to you of the paternal care which I shew to you, when I send my Prophet to give you a hope of pardon, if ye return to the right way and be reconciled to me. But how is it that I still shew a concern for you, as ye have forgotten me, and wholly disregarded my law? It is so, because I wish to continue my favors to you.” The kindness of thy youth he takes in a passive sense; for he does not mean that the Jews were kind or merciful, but that they had experienced the kindness of God.

But the metaphor here used must be noticed. God compares himself here to a young bridegroom, who marries a youthful bride, in the flower of her age, and in the prime of her beauty: and it is a manner of speaking commonly adopted by the prophets. I will not now detain you with a long explanation, as the subject will be treated more at large in another place.

As God, then, had espoused the people of Israel, when he redeemed and brought them out of Egypt, he says now, that he remembers the people on account of that kindness and love. He sets kindness or beneficence before love. The word חסר , ch e s a d, properly means a gratuitous favor or kindness, which is shewn to the miserable, or beneficence. By the word love, God means in many other places the gratuitous election with which he had favored the whole people. The expression is indeed made clearer when kindness or gratuitous favor is placed first, and then love is added: though nothing new is added, yet the Prophet more fully shews that the people had been loved by God in no other way than through his kindness. ²⁷

Now this is a remarkable passage; for God shews that his covenant, though perfidiously violated by the Jews, was yet firm and immutable: for though not all who derive their descent according to the flesh from Abraham, are true and legitimate Israelites, yet God ever remains true, and his calling, as Paul says, is without repentance. (Rom 11:29.) We may therefore learn this from the Prophet’s words, — that God was not content with one Prophet, but continued his favor, inasmuch as he would not render void his covenant. The Jews indeed had impiously departed from the covenant, and a vast number had deservedly perished, having been wholly repudiated; yet God designed really to shew that his grace depends not on the inconstancy of men, as Paul says in another place, for it would then presently fail, (Rom 3:4) and that were all men false and perfidious, God would yet remain true and fixed in his purpose. This we learn from the Prophet’s words, when it is said, that God remembered the people on account of the kindness of their youth.

As to youth and espousals, we may hence learn that they had been anticipated by God’s kindness; for they became in no other way connected with God than by having been chosen by him: their espousal would not have been enjoyed by the people, had not God anticipated them. What was Abraham? and what were all his posterity? God then now shews, that the beginning of all blessings, and as it were the fountain, was this, — that it pleased him to choose the people for himself.

And the same thing is confirmed in other words: When, he says, thou didst follow me in the desert, in a land not sown The people, we know, did not obey God as they ought to have done, even when he had redeemed them. Hence God does not so much in this place commend the people for any merits of their own, but especially confirms what I have already stated, — that he could not cast aside every care for a people whom he had once adopted, and whom he had led through the desert, that they might be a people separated from the rest of the world. He however concedes to them, according to his great goodness, the praise of obedience, because they followed God through rough ways, as though a tender young woman refused not to undergo hard and irksome toils from love to her bridegroom. He afterwards adds —

Calvin: Jer 2:3

God here more clearly reprobates the ingratitude of the people: and first he enumerates his favors by which he had bound the people for ever to himself; and secondly, he shews how malignantly the people responded to the many blessings which they had received.

In saying, then, that Israel was holy, he intends it not by way of honor. It was indeed in itself an illustrious testimony to their praise, that God had consecrated that people to himself, that he designed them to be the first — fruits of his increase: but we must remember that there is here an implied contrast between this great and incomparable favor of God, and the wickedness of the people, who afterwards fell away from that God who had been so liberal and gracious to them. According to this view, then, does Jeremiah say, that Israel was holiness to God; that is, that they were separated from all other nations, so that the glory of God shone only among them.

He then adds, that they were the first-fruits of his produce For though whatever produce the earth may bring forth ought to be consecrated to God, by whose power it grows, yet we know that the first — fruits were gathered and set on the altar as a sacred food. As, then, God had commanded, under the law, the first-fruits to be offered to him, and then given to the priests, he says here, in accordance with that rite, that Israel were the first — fruits of his produce. For the nations, who then everywhere dwelt, were not removed from under God’s government (as he is the creator of all, and shews himself to all as the Father and supporter); but he passed by other nations, and chose the race of Abraham, and for this end, — that he might protect them by his power and aid. Since, then, God had so bound the nation to himself, how great and how strong was the obligation under which that people was to him? Hence the more base and the more detestable was their perfidy, when the people despised the singular favors which God had conferred on them. We now see why the Prophet says that Israel was holy to God, and the first — fruits of his increase.

He also intimates that the time would come, when God would gather to himself other nations; for in the first-fruits the people dedicated and offered to God the whole produce of the year is included. So then Israel was like the first-fruits, because God afterwards took to himself other nations, which for many ages were deemed profane. But yet his special object was to shew that the guilt of the people was extreme, as they did not acknowledge the great favors which God had bestowed on them.

He then adds, Whosoever will devour him shall be punished Of this meaning I approve, because the explanation immediately follows, evil shall come on them God then means not that they should be only guilty of a crime, who should devour the first-fruits, but refers rather to punishment; as though he had said, “The profane shall not be unpunished who shall devour the first-fruits which has been dedicated to me.” For if any had stolen the first- fruits, God would have executed a vengeance such as sacrilege deserved. If, however, any one prefers the other explanation, — that it would be a crime to injure Israel, or to do him any harm, because he was under God’s protection, I shall not oppose him: but the wording of the sentence leads me to the other view, that is, that those who would injure Israel would not only be guilty, but would not be able to escape God’s vengeance, — and why? because evil will come upon them, saith Jehovah ²⁸ He afterwards explains more clearly the import of his doctrine —

Calvin: Jer 2:4

Here God explains why he had referred to what we have noticed, — that he had consecrated Israel to himself as a peculiar people, and as the first — fruits. God often mentions his favors to us, in order to encourage our hope, that we may be fully persuaded that whatever may happen we are ever safe, because we are under his protection, since he has chosen us. But in this place, and in many other places, God recounts the obligations under which the Israelites were to him, that thence their ingratitude might become more apparent.

Hence he says, Hear ye the word of Jehovah By this preface he seeks to gain attention; for he intimates that he was going to address them on no common subject. Hear ye, then, O house of Jacob; hear all ye families of the house of Israel; as though Jeremiah had said, “Here I come forth boldly in the name of God, for I fear not that any defense can be brought forward by you to disprove the justice of God’s reproof; and I confidently wait for what ye may say, for I know you will be silent. I then loudly cry like a trumpet and with a clear voice, that I am come to condemn you; if there is anything which ye can answer, I give you full liberty to do so; but the truth will constrain you to be mute, for your guilt is extremely odious and capable of the fullest proof.” Hence it was that he exhorted them to hear attentively.

Calvin: Jer 2:5

Then follows the charge: What, iniquity have your fathers found in me, that having forsaken me they should walk after vanity and become vain? Here Jeremiah charges the people with two crimes, — that they had departed from the true God, whom they had found to be a deliverer, — and that they had become vain in their devices; or, in other words, that they were become for no reason apostates: for their sin was enhanced, because there had been no occasion given them to forsake God, and to alienate themselves from him. As then God had kindly treated them, and they themselves had shaken off the yoke, and as there was no one whom they could compare with God, they could not have said, “We have been deceived, ” — how so? “ For ye have, he says, followed vanity; and vanity alone was the reason why ye have departed from me.” ²⁹ I wish I could proceed farther; but I have some business to which I was called even before the lecture.

Calvin: Jer 2:6

The Prophet goes on with the same subject; for God adduces here no small crime against his people, as they had buried his favom’s in oblivion. Indeed, a redemption so wonderful was worthy of being celebrated in all ages, not only by one nation, but by all the nations of the earth. As then the Jews had thus buried the memory of a favor so remarkable and valuable, their base impiety appeared evident. Had they not experienced the power and kindness of God, or had they only witnessed them in an ordinary way, their guilt might have been extenuated; but as God had from heaven made an unusual display of his power, and as his majesty had been manifested before the eyes of the people, how great was their sottishness in afterwards forgetting their God, who had openly and with such proofs made himself known to them!

We now then understand what the Prophet means by saying, they have not said: for God here sharply reproves the stupidity of the Jews, — that they did not consider that they were under perpetual obligations to him for his great kindness in delivering them in a manner so wonderful from the land of Egypt. By saying that they did not say, Where is Jehovah, he intimates that he was present with them and nigh them, but that they were blind, and that hence they were without an excuse for their ignorance, as he was not to be sought as one at a distance, or by means tedious and difficult. If then this only had come to their mind, “Did not God once redeem us?” they could not have departed after their vanities. How then was it that their error, or rather their madness, was so great that they followed idols? Even because they did not choose to make any effort, or to apply their minds to seek or to inquire after God.

Here then the Prophet meets the objection of the hypocrites, who might have said, that they had been deceived, and had relapsed through ignorance; for they have ever some evasions ready at hand, when they are called to an account for their sins. But lest the Jews should make any pretense of this kind, the Prophet here shews that they had not been through a mistake deceived, but that they had followed after falsehood through a wicked disposition, for they had willfully despised God and refused to inquire respecting him, though he was sufficiently nigh them.

This passage deserves to be especially noticed; for there is nothing more common than for the ungodly, when they are proved guilty, to have recourse to this subterfuge, — that they acted with good intention, when they gave themselves up to their own superstitions. The Prophet then takes off this mask, and shews that where God is once known, his name and his glory cannot be obliterated, except through the depravity of men, as they knowingly and willfully depart from him. Hence all apostates are by this one clause condemned, that they may no more dare to make evasions, as though they have been through more simplicity deceived: for when the matter is examined, their malignity and ingratitude are discovered, because they deign not to inquire, Where is Jehovah?

And he afterwards adds what explains this sentence. I have said that other nations are not here condemned, but the Jews, who had known by clear experience that God was their father. As then God had, by many testimonies, made himself known to them, they had no pretext for their ignorance. Hence the Prophet says, that they did not consider where God was who brought them from the land of Egypt, and made them to pass through the desert He could not have stated this indiscriminately of all nations; but, as it has been said, the words are addressed particularly to the Jews, who had clearly witnessed the power of God; so that they could not have sinned except willfully, even by extinguishing, through their own malignity, the light presented to them, which shone before their eyes. And here, also, the Prophet amplifies their guilt by various circumstances: for he says, not simply that they had been brought out of Egypt, but intimates that God had been their constant guide for forty years; for this time is suggested by the word “desert.” The history was well known; hence a brief allusion was sufficient. He, at the same time, by mentioning the desert, greatly extols the glory of God.

But the first thing to be observed is, that the Jews were inexcusable, who had not considered that their fathers had been wonderfully and in an unusual manner preserved by God’s hand for forty years; for they had no bread to eat, nor water to drink. God drew water for them from a rock, and satisfied them with heavenly bread; and their garments did not wear out during the whole time. We then see that all those circumstances enhanced their guilt. Then follows what I have referred to: the Prophet calls the desert a dry or a waste land, a dreary land, a horrible land, a land of deadly gloom, as though he had said, that the people had been preserved in the midst of death, yea in the midst of many deaths: for man was not wont to pass through that land, nor did any one dwell in it ³⁰ “Whence then,” he says, “did salvation arise to you? from what condition? even from death itself: for what else was the desert but a horrible place, where you were surrounded, not only by one kind of death, but by a hundred? Since then God brought you out of Egypt by his incredible power, and fed you in a supernatural manner for forty years, what excuse can there be for so great a madness in now alienating yourselves from him?” Now this passage teaches us, that the more favors God confers on us, the more heinous the guilt if we forsake him, and less excusable will be our wickedness and ingratitude, especially when he has manifested his kindness to us for a long time and in various ways.

Calvin: Jer 2:7

He afterwards adds, And I brought you in, etc. Here Jeremiah introduces God as the speaker; for God had, as with his hand stretched forth, brought in the children of Abraham into the possession of the promised land, which they did not get, as it is said in Psa 44:3, by their own power and by their own sword; for though they had to fight with many enemies, yet it was God that made them victorious. He could then truly say, that they did not otherwise enter the land than under his guidance; inasmuch as he had opened a way and passage for them, and subdued and put to flight their enemies, that they might possess the heritage promised to them. I brought you in, he says, into the land, into Carmel Some consider this to be the name of a place; and no doubt there was the mount Carmel, so called on account of its great fertility. As then its name was given to it because it was so fertile, it is nothing strange that Jeremiah compares the land of Israel to Carmel. Some will have the preposition כ , c a ph, to be understood, “I have brought you into a land like Carmel.” But there is no need laboriously to turn in all directions the Prophet’s words. It is, as I think, a common noun, meaning fruitful, and used here to shew that the Israelites had been brought by God’s hand into a fertile land; for its fertility is everywhere celebrated, both in the Law and in the Prophets. ³¹

That ye might eat its fruit and its abundance; that is, “I wished you to enjoy the large and rich produce of the land.” By these words God intimates that the Israelites ought to have been induced by such allurements cordially to serve him; for by such liberal treatment he kindly invited them to himself. The greater, then, the bounty of God towards the people, the greater was the indignity offered by their defection, when they despised the various and abounding blessings of God.

Hence he adds, And ye have polluted my land, ³² and mine heritage have ye made an abomination; as though he had said, “This is the reward by which my bounty towards you has been compensated. I indeed gave you this land, but on this condition, that ye serve me faithfully in it: but ye have polluted it.” He calls it his own land, as though he had said, that he had so given the land to the Israelites, that he remained still the lord of it as a proprietor, though he granted the occupation of it to them. He hence shews that they impiously abused his bounty, in polluting that land which was sacred to his name. For the same purpose he calls it his heritage, as if he said that they possessed the land by an hereditary right, and yet the heritage belonged to their Father. They ought, therefore, to have considered, that they had entered into the land, because it had been given to Abraham and to his children for an heritage, — by whom? By God, who was the fountain of this bounty. The more detestable, then, was their ingratitude, when they made the heritage of God an abomination It follows —

Calvin: Jer 2:8

God assails here especially the teachers and those to whom was committed the power of ruling the people. It often happens that the common people fall away, while yet some integrity remains in the rulers. But God shews here that such was the falling away among the whole community, that priests as well as prophets and all the chief men had departed from the true worship of God, and from all uprightness.

Now, when Jeremiah thus rebukes the teachers and the priests and others, he does not excuse the common people, nor extenuate the crimes, which then prevailed everywhere, as we shall see from what follows. As many think that they set up a shield against God, when they pretend that they are not acquainted with so much learning as to distinguish between light and darkness, but that they are guided by their rulers, the Prophet, therefore, does not here cast the faults of the people upon their rulers, but, on the contrary, he amplifies the atrocity of their impiety, for they had, from the least to the greatest, rejected God and his Law. We now, then, understand the design of the Prophet. ³³

We may learn from this passage how unwise and foolish are they who think that they are in part excusable when they can say, that they have proceeded in their simplicity and have been drawn into error by the faults of others; for it appears evident that the whole community was in a hopeless state when God gave up the priests and rulers unto a reprobate mind; and there is no doubt but that the people had provoked God’s vengeance, when every order, civil as well as religious, was thus corrupt. God then visited the people with deserved punishment, when he blinded the priests, the prophets, and the rulers.

Hence Jeremiah now says, that the priests did not inquire where Jehovah was: and he adds, and they who keep the law, etc. The verb תפש t a ph e sh, means to keep, to lay hold on, and sometimes to cover; so that there may be here a twofold meaning, — that the priests kept the law, — or, that they had it shut up as it were under their keeping. It would not, however, be in harmony with the passage to suppose that the law was suppressed by them; for God, by way of concession, speaks here honorably of them, thought he thereby shews that they were the more wicked, as they had no care for their office. He says, then, that they were the keepers of his law, not that they really kept the law, as though a genuine zeal for it prevailed among them, but because they professed this. They indeed wished to be thought the keepers of the law, who possessed the hidden treasure of celestial truth; for they wished to be consulted as though they were the organs of God’s Spirit. Since, then, they boasted that they kept and preserved the law, the Prophet now more sharply rebukes them, because they knew not God himself. And Paul seems to have taken from this place what he says in the second chapter of the Epistle to the Romans,

“Thou who hast the form of the law — thou who preachest against adultery, committest adultery, and thou who condemnest idols art thyself guilty of sacrilege; for thou keepest the law, restest in it, boastest in God, and with thee is understanding and knowledge.”
(Rom 2:20.)

Paul in these words detects the wickedness of hypocrites; for the more detestable they were, as they were thus inflated with false glory; they profaned the name of God, while they pretended to be his heralds, and as it were his prophets. We now see that this second clause refers to the priests, and that they are called the keepers of the law, because they were so appointed, according to what we read in Malachi. ³⁴

He afterwards adds, The pastors have dealt treacherously with God We may apply this to the counselors of the king as well as to the governors of cities. The Prophet, I have no doubt, included all those who possessed authority to rule the people of God; for kings and their counselors, as well as prophets, are in common called pastors.

And he says, that the prophets prophesied by Baal The name of prophet is sacred; but Jeremiah in this place, as in other places, calls those prophets (contrary to the real fact) who were nothing but impostors; for God had taken from them all the light of divine truth. But as they were held still in esteem by the people, as though they were prophets, the Prophet concedes this title to them, derived from their office and vocation. We do the same in the present day; we call those bishops and prelates, and primates and fathers, who under the papacy boast that they possess the pastoral office, and yet we know that some of them are wolves, and some are dumb dogs. We concede to them these titles in which they take pride; and yet a twofold condemnation impends over their heads, as they thus impiously, and with sacrilegious audacity, claim for themselves sacred titles, and deprive God of the honor rightly due to him. So then Jeremiah, speaking of the prophets, does now point out those as impostors who at that time wickedly deceived the people.

He says that they prophesied by Baal: they ascribed more authority to idols than to the true God. The name of Baal, we know, was then commonly known. The prophets often call idols Baalim, in the plural number; but when Baal signifies a patron, when the prophets speak either of Baal in the singular number, or of Baalim in the plural, they mean the inferior gods, who had then been heaped together by the Jews, as though God was not content with his own power alone, but had need of associates and helpers, according to what is done at this day by those under the papacy, who confess that there is but one true God; and yet they ascribe nothing more to him than to their own idols which they invent for themselves at their pleasure. The same vice then prevailed among the Jews, and indeed among all heathen nations; for it was the plain and real confession of all, that there is but one supreme Being; and yet they had gods without number, and these all were called Baalim. When, therefore, the Prophet says here, that the teachers were ministers of Baal, he sets this name in opposition to the only true God, as though he had said that the truth was corrupted by them, because they passed over its limits, and did not acquiesce in the pure doctrine of the law, but mingled with it corruptions derived from all quarters, even from those many gods which heathen nations had invented for themselves.

Nor does the Prophet insist on a name; for it may have been that these false teachers pretended to profess the name of the eternal God, though falsely. But God is no sophist: there is then no reason for the Papists to think that they are at this day unlike these ancient impostors, because they profess the name of the only true God. It has always been so. Satan has not begun for the first time at this day to transform himself into an angel of light; but all his teachers in all ages have presented their poison, even all their errors and fallacies, in a golden cup. Though, then, these prophets boasted that they were sent from above, and confidently affirmed that they were the servants of the God of Abraham, it was yet all an empty profession; for they mingled with the truth those corruptions which they had derived from the ungodly errors of heathen nations.

It follows, And after those who do not profit have they gone ³⁵ He again, by an implied comparison, exaggerates their sin, because they had despised him whom they had known, by so many evidences, to be their Father and the author of salvation, whose infinite power they had as it were felt by their own hands, and then they followed their own inventions, though there was nothing in all their idols which could have justly allured the people of Israel. Since, then, they followed vain and profitless deceptions, the more heinous and inexcusable was their sin. It afterwards follows —

Calvin: Jer 2:9

The particle עוד oud, yet, or still, is not without weight; for the Prophet intimates, that if God had already punished the perfidy and wickedness of the people, he still retained whole his right to do so, as though he had said, “Think not that you have suffered all your punishment, though I have already severely visited your fathers for their wickedness and obstinacy; for as ye proceed in the same course, and as there is no moderation nor limits to your sins, I will not desist from what I have a right to do, but will punish to the last both you and your children, and all succeeding generations.” We now then understand what the Prophet means.

It is indeed usual with hypocrites foolishly to cast off all fear, especially after having been once chastised by the Lord; for they think it enough that they have suffered punishment for their sins; and they do not consider that God moderately punishes the sins of men to invite others to repentance, and that he is in such a way sharp and severe as yet to restrain himself, in order that there may be room for hope, and that they who have sinned, while waiting for pardon, may thus more readily and willingly return to the right way. This is what hypocrites do not consider; but they think that God on the first occasion expends all his rigor, and so they promise themselves impunity as to the future. As for instance, — When God chastises a city, or a country, with war, pestilence, or famine, while the evils continue there is dread and anxiety: most of those whom God thus afflicts sigh and groan, and even howl; but as soon as some relaxation takes place, they shake off the yoke, and having no concern for their wickedness, they return again as dogs to their vomit. It is hence necessary to declare to hypocrites what we see to have been done here by Jeremiah, — that God so visits men for their sins, that in future he ceases not to pursue the same course, when he sees men so refractory as not to profit under his scourges.

Still, therefore, he says: this threat no doubt exasperated the minds of the nation: for as they dared to clamor against God, as we find in many places, and said that his ways were thorny, they spared not the prophets, and this we shall hereafter see: they indeed gave the prophets an odious character; and what? “These prophets,” they said, “chatter nothing else but burdens, burdens, as though God ever fulminated against us; it would be better to close our ears than to be continually frightened by their words.” It must then have been a severe thing to the Jews, when the Prophet said, Still God will contend with you But it was needful so to do.

Let us then learn from this passage, that whenever God reproves us, not only in words, but in reality, and reminds us of our sins, we do not so suffer for one fault as to be free for the future, but that until we from the heart repent, he ever sounds in our ears these words, Still God will contend with you: and a real contention is meant; for Jeremiah speaks not of naked doctrine, but intimates that the Jews were to be led before God’s tribunal, because they ceased not to provoke his wrath: ³⁶ and he declares the same thing respecting their children and the third generation. It afterwards follows —

TSK: Jer 2:1

the word : Jer 1:11, Jer 7:1, Jer 23:28; Eze 7:1; Heb 1:1; 2Pe 1:21

TSK: Jer 2:2

cry : Jer 7:2, Jer 11:6, Jer 19:2; Pro 1:20, Pro 8:1-4; Isa 58:1; Hos 8:1; Jon 1:2; Mat 11:15; Luk 12:13

thee : or, for thy sake

the kindness : Exo 14:31, 15:1-20; Eze 16:8, Eze 16:22, Eze 16:60, Eze 23:3, Eze 23:8, Eze 23:19; Hos 2:15

thine espousals : Exo 24:3-8; Son 3:11; Exo 16:8

when : Jer 2:6; Deu 2:7, Deu 8:2, Deu 8:15, Deu 8:16; Neh 9:12-21; Isa 63:7-14

TSK: Jer 2:3

holiness : Exo 19:5, Exo 19:6; Deu 7:6, Deu 14:2, Deu 26:19; Zec 14:20,Zec 14:21; Eph 1:4; 1Pe 2:9

the firstfruits : Exo 22:29, Exo 23:16; Num 18:12; Amo 6:1 *marg. Rom 11:16, Rom 16:5; Jam 1:18; Rev 14:4

all that : Jer 12:14, Jer 50:7; Exo 4:22, Exo 4:23; Psa 81:14, Psa 81:15, Psa 105:14, Psa 105:15, Psa 105:25-36; Isa 41:11; Isa 47:6; Joe 1:3, Joe 1:7, Joe 1:8; Zec 1:15, Zec 2:8, Zec 12:2-4; Act 9:4, Act 9:5

TSK: Jer 2:4

Hear ye : Jer 5:21, Jer 7:2, Jer 13:15, Jer 19:3, Jer 34:4, Jer 44:24-26; Isa 51:1-4; Hos 4:1; Mic 6:1

all the families : Jer 31:1, Jer 33:24

TSK: Jer 2:5

What : Jer 2:31; Isa 5:3, Isa 5:4, Isa 43:22, Isa 43:23; Mic 6:2, Mic 6:3

are gone : Jer 12:2; Isa 29:13; Eze 11:15; Mat 15:8

walked : Jer 10:8, Jer 10:14, Jer 10:15, Jer 14:22; Deu 32:21; 1Sa 12:21; 2Ki 17:15; Jon 2:8; Act 14:15

and are : Jer 51:17, Jer 51:18; Psa 115:8; Isa 44:9; Rom 1:21

TSK: Jer 2:6

Where : Jer 2:8, Jer 5:2; Jdg 6:13; 2Ki 2:14; Job 35:10; Psa 77:5; Isa 64:7

brought us up : Exod. 14:1-15:27; Isa 63:9, Isa 63:11-13; Hos 12:13, Hos 13:4

led us : Jer 2:2; Deu 8:14-16, Deu 32:10

the shadow : Job 3:5, Job 10:21, Job 10:22; Psa 23:4; Mat 4:16

TSK: Jer 2:7

brought : Num 13:27, Num 14:7, Num 14:8; Deu 6:10,Deu 6:11, Deu 6:18, Deu 8:7-9, Deu 11:11, Deu 11:12; Neh 9:25; Eze 20:6

a plentiful country : or, the land of Carmel

ye defiled : Jer 3:1, Jer 3:9, Jer 16:18; Lev 18:24-28; Num 35:33, Num 35:34; Deu 21:23; Psa 78:58, Psa 78:59; Psa 106:38, Psa 106:39; Eze 36:17; Mic 2:10

TSK: Jer 2:8

priests : Jer 2:6, Jer 5:31, Jer 8:10,Jer 8:11, Jer 23:9-15; 1Sa 2:12; Isa 28:7, Isa 29:10, Isa 56:9-12; Hos 4:6

and they that : Jer 8:8, Jer 8:9; Deu 33:10; Mal 2:6-9; Luk 11:52; Joh 8:55, Joh 16:3; Rom 2:17-24; 2Co 4:2

the pastors : Jer 10:21, Jer 12:10, Jer 23:1, Jer 23:2

prophets : Jer 23:13; 1Ki 18:29, 1Ki 18:22, 1Ki 18:40

do not : Jer 2:11, Jer 7:8; 1Sa 12:21; Isa 30:5; Hab 2:18; Mat 16:26

TSK: Jer 2:9

I will : Jer 2:29, Jer 2:35; Isa 3:13, Isa 43:26; Eze 20:35, Eze 20:36; Hos 2:2; Mic 6:2

with your : Exo 20:5; Lev 20:5

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Jer 2:1

Moreover - literally, And. Notice the connection between Jeremiah’ s call and first prophecy.

Barnes: Jer 2:2

Up to this time Jeremiah had lived at Anathoth, he is now to make Jerusalem the scene of his ministrations.

I remember ... - Or, I have remembered for thee the grace "of thy youth, the love of thine espousals,"thy going "after me in the wilderness"in an unsown land. Jeremiah contrasts the present unfriendly relations between Yahweh and His people with their past love. Israel, as often elsewhere, is represented as a young bride Eze 16:8; Hos 2:20; Joe 1:8. The walking after God in the wilderness was an act of love on Israel’ s part. Israel did leave Egypt at Moses’ bidding, and at Sinai was solemnly espoused to Yahweh.

Barnes: Jer 2:3

Render: "Israel"is an offering consecrated to Yahweh, His firstfruits of increase. The firstfruits were God’ s consecrated property, His portion of the whole harvest. Pagan, i. e., unconsecrated, nations must not meddle with Israel, because it is the nation consecrated to God. If they do, they will bring such guilt upon themselves as those incur who eat the first-fruits Lev 22:10, Lev 22:16.

Barnes: Jer 2:6

Modern researches have shown that this description applies only to limited portions of the route of the Israelites through the Sinaitic peninsula.

Barnes: Jer 2:7

A plentiful country - literally, "a land of the Carmel,"a Carmel land (see 1Ki 18:19, note; Isa 29:17, note).

Barnes: Jer 2:8

The guilt of this idolatry is ascribed to the four ruling classes:

(a) The accusation brought against the priests is indifference.

(b) "They that handle the law"belonged also to the priestly class Deu 33:10. Their offence was that "they knew not God."Compare Mic 3:11.

© The third class are "the pastors"or shepherds, that is the temporal rulers. Their crime is disobedience.

(d) The fourth class are "the prophets."It was their business to press the moral and spiritual truths of the law home to the hearts of the people: but they drew their inspiration from Baal, the Sun-god. Upon the corruption of the prophetic order at this time, see the Jer 14:13 note.

Things that do not profit - Here idols, which are not merely unreal, but injurious. See 1Sa 12:21; Isa 44:9.

Barnes: Jer 2:9

Plead - The word used by the plaintiff setting forth his accusation in a law-court (see Job 33:13 note).

With you - The present generation, who by joining in Manasseh’ s apostasy have openly violated Yahweh’ s covenant. The fathers made the nation what it now is, the children will receive it such as the present generation are now making it to be, and God will judge it according as the collective working of the past, the present, and the future tends to good or to evil.

Poole: Jer 2:2

Go, viz. from Anathoth to Jerusalem.

Cry in the ears proclaim it so that they may hear it.

Of Jerusalem declare God’ s will to the inhabitants thereof; a metonymy of the subject.

Thus saith the Lord the prophet’ s usual form of words in this book, whereby he frequently intimates that he came with God’ s message, not his own; and therefore directs his sermon here, as in God’ s name and person, to the whole body of the people.

I remember thee I record, or I mind thee of the kindness that was between us: though this be sometimes taken in a way of favour, Neh 13:31 , yet not always so, as Neh 13:29 Psa 137:7 .

The kindness of thy youth either those forward and early affections of thine to me in thy youth; or rather, the kindness that I showed thee in thy youth, Isa 46:3 ; for this relates to the time of God’ s bringing them out of Egypt, which is sometimes called the birth of this people, Isa 44:2 Hos 2:3 , and their youth, Isa 54:6 Hos 2:15 . The story seems to favour most this latter sense, Deu 9:6,24 .

The love of thine espousals viz. when I entered into a covenant relation with thee at the giving of the law, Exo 24:7,8 De 4:20,23,34 Eze 16:8 , &c.

When thou wentest after me in the wilderness either out of that love and affection that thou didst show to me in following my conduct; or rather, when thou wert led by me in the wilderness, and I took such care of thee, both for protection and provision, in that howling wilderness, though thou didst ill deserve it, where nothing necessary to thy subsistence could have been expected; and therefore it is expressed in the next words by a periphrasis, a land that was not sown; and more enlarged upon Jer 1:6 ; for it plainly appears by the story that they did not follow him with entire affection, but went a whoring from him, Amo 5:25,26 , and which we have a large account of Psa 106:7 , &c.

Poole: Jer 2:3

Israel was holiness or

holy the abstract for the concrete, i.e. a people dedicated to God; thus the word is used Lev 21:7 27:14 ; set apart from other people for myself by peculiar laws and rites.

And the first-fruits of his increase: this supplement

and is better left out, it being not in the text, and rendering the sense more obscure; therefore better read, either, being the first-fruits, by apposition; or, as the first-fruits , i.e. as the first-fruits were holy to God, so was Israel.

All that devour or rather, devoured; for it refers to the time past, not to the future, and so the following words; all that were injurious to him

shall offend or, did offend, were obnoxious, and liable to punishment, as he that devoured that which is holy, Pro 20:25 .

Shall come upon them came upon them: some evil was inflicted on them from the Lord, that was always wont to stand up for the vindication of his people, as upon the Egyptians, Amalekites, Sihon, Og, the Midianites, Canaanites, and others, as the four last books of Moses do abundantly testify; and by these expressions is insinuated that now they are like to find it otherwise, Jer 1:7 ; this minding of them what God had done for them making way for the closer setting home the following reproofs.

Poole: Jer 2:4

Hear ye the word of the Lord: he bespeaks their attention to what he is about to speak, as unto the word of the Lord, telling them that he deliver’ s God’ s message, and vents not his own passions: the like Isa 1:10 , and elsewhere frequently, both in the Old and New Testament, as 1Co 11:23 1Th 4:15 .

Jacob , i.e. his posterity; Jacob and Israel here being the same, as it is Isa 43:1 . The families, viz. tribes, Jer 31:1 .

Poole: Jer 2:5

God having, as it were on his own behalf, shown how kind he had been, calls upon them to speak now, if they knew any thing of injury, either in breach of covenant or severity, that they can charge him with, that they have thus apostatized. See Poole "Isa 1:18" ; See Poole "Isa 5:3" : compare Mic 6:2-4 . By this manner of speech his proceeding appears the more justifiable; he both makes their conviction the clearer, and the reproof the sharper.

Walked after vanity viz. idols, showing their folly in going from God to such vain things as idols are, Deu 32:21 1Sa 12:20,21 ; and see on Isa 41:29 ; the abstract for the concrete, Ecc 1:2 .

Become vain , viz. in following their imaginations; fools,

Rom 1:21,22 , as senseless as the stocks and stones that they made their idols of, Psa 115:8 ; and herein they are said to go far from God, and choose their delusions, Jon 2:8 .

Poole: Jer 2:6

Neither said i.e. with themselves, thought not.

Brought us up: the expression may have some respect to the situation of the place, as lying lower than Canaan; but the design is to reprove their sloth and stupidity, charging herein their apostacy, not upon their ignorance, but wilfulness; their deliverance from Egypt, and therefore is it here mentioned, being such a deliverance as never greater was wrought for any people, wherein there was so much of his power and love seen; they never regarded the operations of his hands, never concerned themselves about what God had done for them, Jer 2:8 , which should have engaged them to a more close cleaving to him.

Through a land of deserts desolate places, Jer 1:13 ; and then what follows is to amplify the greatness of their dangers in the wilderness, and therein the greatness of their deliverance. And of pits ; either those natural dangerous pits that were there; or put for the grave, where passengers are so often buried quick in the heaps of sand suddenly blown up by the wind; or threatening in every respect nothing but death, which may be implied in that expression of the

shadow of death in this verse, which may allude to several kinds or fears of death in passing through a wilderness. See in the Synopsis.

A land of drought where they had no water but by miracle; the LXX. render it a land without water. The shadow of death: see on the word pits: the LXX. render it a land without fruit, bringing forth nothing that might have a tendency to the support of life, therefore nothing but death could be expected; and besides, it yielding so many venomous creatures, as scorpions, and serpents, &c., as also the many enemies that they went in continual danger of; all which could not but look formidable, and as the

shadow of death. That no man passed through, and where no man dwelt as having in it no accommodation for travel, much less for habitation. In these respects may it well be called a waste howling wilderness, Deu 32:10 .

Poole: Jer 2:7

Plentiful country Heb.

land of Carmel Isa 29:17 ; understand Canaan, Num 13:27 : See Poole "Isa 35:2" .

To eat the fruit thereof and the goodness to enjoy all the blessing of it.

My land i.e. consecrated to my name, Lev 25:23 ; and this you have defiled by going a whoring after your idols, Jer 3:1 , and many other abominations, Psa 106:29,35,37-39 .

Mine heritage in the same sense that it is said in the foregoing clause my land, and which you received from me as your heritage, the place that I chose for my church’ s present habitation, and earnest of their future heavenly one.

Poole: Jer 2:8

They that handle the law knew me not: q.d. They that should have taught others knew as little as they, or regarded as little to know, Hos 4:6 , who are said here to handle or teach the law, viz. the priests and Levites, who Were the ordinary teachers of the law; not that they did so, but that either they ought to do so, or pretended to do so. This was their office, Deu 33:10 , and their practice, Neh 8:8 . The phrase is a metaphor taken from warriors, that are said tractare bellum , to handle their arms.

The pastors either teachers, as instructors; or kings and princes, as conductors. See 1Ki 22:17 .

The prophets prophesied by Baal they that should have taught the people the true worship of God were themselves worshippers of Baal, 1Ki 18:22 . Or, instead of fetching their oracles from me, saying,

Thus saith the Lord they would say, Thus saith Baal; or they did make use of lesser deities (for so doth Baal or Baalim signify) in conjunction with God, persuading themselves they could honour God together with them, as the calves, 1Ki 12:28 .

Things that do not profit viz. idols, a periphrasis, that were never able to do them any service, as Jer 2:5,11 . See Poole "Isa 44:10" . Sure the state must be very bad, when priests, prophets, and people were thus corrupt.

Poole: Jer 2:9

I will yet plead with you: this is to be understood either really, by his judgments, Psa 74:22 , and that with great severities; or verbally, he will go on to deal with them, to convince them by his prophets, as he did with their fathers, that they may be left without excuse, Jer 7:25,26 .

With your children’ s children either for the heinousness of their fathers’ sins; for God doth often visit the iniquities of the parents upon their children, Exo 20:5 ; or because they do imitate their parents.

Haydock: Jer 2:2

Espousals. He speaks ironically. (Theodoret) ---

Yet the Israelites at first shewed greater proofs of love than they did afterwards. It is true they often prevaricated, in the wilderness, Exodus xxxii. 1., and Amos v. 25., and Psalm lxxvii., &c. (Calmet) ---

The Lord declares his gratuitous love, and then upbraids his people. (Haydock) ---

He had caused them to multiply in Egypt, and gratuitously made choice of them. (Worthington)

Haydock: Jer 2:3

Increase; most desirable, Osee ix. 10. God punished those who attempted to injure his people: yet they abandoned his service.

Haydock: Jer 2:5

Vanity; idols, whom he will not mention, to spare their shame. (Calmet)

Haydock: Jer 2:7

Carmel. That is, a fruitful, plentiful land. (Challoner) (Worthington) ---

All Palestine is thus designated. (Menochius)

Haydock: Jer 2:8

Priests were silent, or abandoned themselves. ---

Pastors; "princes." (Chaldean) Manasses, Amon, &c. ---

In Baal, promoting his worship. (Haydock) ---

The land was full of false prophets, and none stood up for the Lord.

Haydock: Jer 2:9

Children; the Israelites, under Moses, and their posterity transgressed.

Gill: Jer 2:1

Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me, saying. Here begins the book, and Jeremiah's first sermon; and the following contains the message he was sent with, to which the preceding chapter is only a preface or introduction. The Targum calls it,

"the word of the prophecy from before the Lord.''

Gill: Jer 2:2

Go, and cry in the ears of Jerusalem,.... Of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the metropolis of Judea. The prophet seems now to have been at Anathoth, and therefore is bid to go from thence to Jerusalem, and there prophesy before the people in it, as the Targum paraphrases it:

saying, thus saith the Lord, I remember thee; the Lord never forgets his people, though they sometimes think he does; it cannot be for they are engraven on the palms of his hands, yea, are set as a seal on his heart; nor does he forget his covenant with them, nor favours and blessings promised them: or, "I remember for thee"; or, "to thee" ^w: things in thy favour, and which will be to thy advantage:

the kindness of thy youth; either the lovingkindness of the Lord, which he had shown unto them; and the benefits, as the fruits thereof, which he had bestowed upon them in former times, when they were brought out of Egypt, and into the wilderness, which was the infancy both of their civil and church state; see Hos 11:1 and when they received many favours from the Lord, Jer 31:2 or the kindness of the people of Israel to the Lord, which was influenced and drawn forth by his love to them; though this can only be understood of some few of them, since the greater part tempted him, grieved, and provoked him:

the love of thine espousals; for the covenant God made with that people, when he brought them out of Egypt, was in the form of a marriage contract; he became their husband, and they became his spouse and bride; and which is an aggravation of their violation of it, Jer 31:32 and this love, as before, may be understood either of the love of God to them, or of their love to him. The Targum interprets the former clause of the divine goodness to them, and this of their love to him, paraphrasing the whole thus,

"I remember unto you the blessings of ancient days, and the love of your fathers, who believed in my word:''

when thou wentest after me; the Lord going before them in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night; even the angel of God's presence, who was their leader, guide, and preserver:

in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown; where they passed through many difficulties, and lived upon the providence of God, which, in a wonderful manner, supported them with the necessaries of life, which otherwise they could not have had. The Targum is,

"and they walked after my two messengers, after Moses and Aaron, in the wilderness forty years without food, in a land that was not sown.''

The whole of this may be applied to the case of God's people at first conversion, when they are as newly born babes, and become young men in Christ; at which time they are openly espoused to him, having been secretly betrothed in covenant before; but now, through the efficacy of the Spirit attending the word, they are made willing to give up themselves to the Lord, and are espoused to one husband, Christ, 2Co 11:2 at which time also great kindness and love is expressed both by the Lord to them, by quickening them who before were dead; by bringing them out of a most miserable condition; by speaking comfortably to them; by manifesting and applying his pardoning grace; and by openly taking them into his family: and also by them to him again; for the grace of love is then implanted, which, as it is hearty and sincere, is very ardent and fervent; which shows itself by parting with and bearing all for Christ; and by a concern for his company and presence; and by a regard to his people, Gospel, ways, and worship; particularly by following him in his ordinances with great zeal, fervency, and constancy, even though attended with many difficulties and discouragements; and though the way may seem to flesh and blood very unpleasant and unpromising; all which is remembered by the Lord when forgotten by them; and when their love is become cold to him, he not only remembers them, and his love to them, which is always the same, but also their love to him.

Gill: Jer 2:3

Israel was holiness unto the Lord,.... When first brought out of Egypt into the wilderness, by the Lord's choice and separation of them to be a holy people to him above all others; by covenant with him, and profession of him; and by his giving them holy laws, and placing a sanctuary among them; and by their high priest, who represented them in the most holy place; and had on the front of his mitre written,

holiness unto the Lord; so the spiritual Israel are chosen in Christ to be holy, and he is made sanctification to them; they are sanctified in him, and by his Spirit; they are called with a holy calling, and unto holiness; and, under the influence of grace, live holy lives and conversations, which the grace of God teaches, and young converts are remarkable for; their consciences being just awakened, and their hearts tender:

and the firstfruits of his increase; Israel was the first nation that God separated for himself; and this being the firstfruits, shows that he would separate others also, and take out of the Gentiles a people for his name, which he has since done; and the elect of God among the Israelites were the firstfruits of his chosen ones elsewhere; it were some of them that first believed in Christ, and received the firstfruits of the Spirit; and all converted ones are a kind of firstfruits of his creatures; the grace they receive at conversion is the firstfruits of a later increase of it, and even of eternal glory:

all that devour him shall offend; or, "all that eat him shall be guilty" ^x; and be condemned and punished, who eat up the Lord's people, as they eat bread; see Psa 53:4, these shall not go unpunished; for his people are as the apple of his eye, and whoever touches and hurts them fall under the divine displeasure, and will be looked upon as criminals and offenders, and will be judged and condemned as such. The allusion is to the eating of the firstfruits, which only belonged to the priests; nor might any of the increase be eaten until the firstfruits were brought to them, Lev 23:10. This is expressed in the Chaldee paraphrase of the text,

"whosoever eats of them (the firstfruits) is guilty of death; for as the beginning of the harvest, the sheaf of oblation, whoever eats of it before the priests, the sons of Aaron, have offered of it upon the altar, shall be guilty or condemned; so all that spoil the house of Israel shall be guilty or condemned;''

so Jarchi and Kimchi:

evil shall come upon them, saith the Lord; that is, the evil of punishment, either in this world, or in that which is to come, or in both.

Gill: Jer 2:4

Hear ye the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. The Lord, by the prophet, having observed his great kindness to this people, what they were unto him, and what a regard he had for them, proceeds to upbraid them with their ingratitude, and requires an attention to what he was about to say; all are called upon, because, all were guilty. This respects the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and the several families in them. The ten tribes had been long carried captive.

Gill: Jer 2:5

Thus saith the Lord, what iniquity have your fathers found in me,.... What injustice or injury has been done them? there is no unrighteousness in God, nor can any be done by him; or what unfaithfulness, or want of truth and integrity in performing promises, had they found in him? he never suffers his faithfulness to fail, or any of the good things he has promised. So the Targum,

"what falsehood have your fathers found in my word?''

none at all; God is a covenant keeping God:

that they are gone far from me; from my fear, as the Chaldee paraphrase; from the word and worship, and ways of God:

and have walked after vanity; after idols, the vanities of the Gentiles, Jer 14:22,

and are become vain? in their imaginations and in their actions, in their knowledge and in their practice, worshipping idols, as well as guilty of many other sins.

Gill: Jer 2:6

Neither said they, where is the Lord?.... They did not ask after him, nor seek his face and favour, nor worship him, nor took any notice of the blessings he bestowed upon them:

that brought us up out of the land of Egypt? by means of Moses the deliverer, with a mighty hand, and outstretched arm; for, though Moses was the instrument, God was the efficient cause of the deliverance; the favour was his, and the glory of it ought to have been given to him:

that led us through the wilderness; of "Shur", or of "Sin", the desert of Arabia, Exo 15:22 and a dreadful and terrible one it was:

through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death; where were scorpions, fiery serpents, drought, and no water, and so very dangerous as well as uncomfortable travelling; and yet through all this they were led, and wonderfully supplied and preserved;

through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt; there was no passenger in it, nor inhabitants on it, so that there were none to relieve them; whence it appears, that all their supply, support, and preservation, were from the Lord. The Jews ^y interpret this of the first man Adam, after this manner,

"all land, concerning which the first man decreed that it should be inhabited, it is inhabited; and all land, concerning which he did not decree it should be inhabited, it is not inhabited; and such they suggest was this wilderness;''

see Deu 8:15.

Gill: Jer 2:7

And I brought you into a plentiful country,.... "Into the land of Carmel", as in the Hebrew text; that is,

"into the land of Israel, which was planted as Carmel,''

as the Targum paraphrases it; with wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, pomegranates, and olives; a land flowing with milk and honey, Deu 8:8, so Ben Melech:

to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; of vineyards and oliveyards, which they had not planted, and for which they had never laboured, Jos 24:13,

but when ye entered ye defiled my land; which the Lord had chosen above all lands, where he would have a temple built for his worship, and where he would cause his Shechinah or glorious Majesty to dwell; but this they defiled by their sins and transgressions, and particularly by their idolatry, as follows:

that made mine heritage an abomination; by devoting it to the worship of idols, as the Targum paraphrases it.

Gill: Jer 2:8

The priests said not, where is the Lord?.... Whose business it was to draw nigh to God, and offer the sacrifices of the people, and inquire of God for them; whose lips should keep knowledge, and at whose mouth the law should be sought, they being the messengers of the Lord of hosts, Mal 2:7,

and they that handle the law knew me not; the sanhedrim, according to Jarchi; or the lawyers and scribes, the Rabbins and doctors of the law, whose business it was to read and explain it; these did not understand it, nor the mind of God in it; and much less did they know him in a spiritual and evangelical manner; or as he is in Christ, and revealed in the Gospel:

the pastors also transgressed against me; kings, as the Targum, Jarchi, and Kimchi interpret it, who were pastors or shepherds in a civil sense; whose business it was to feed the people as the shepherd does his flock; that is, to guide and govern them by wholesome laws, by the laws of God; but, instead of this, they rebelled against the Lord, and transgressed his commands:

and the prophets prophesied by Baal; in his name; pretending to be inspired by that idol, and to receive the spirit of prophecy from him:

and walked after things that do not profit; the gods of the Gentiles, which could not supply them with the least temporal blessing, and much less give them spiritual and eternal ones; see Jer 14:22. This is to be understood of false prophets, as Ben Melech.

Gill: Jer 2:9

Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the Lord,.... Either verbally, by reasoning with them, and reproving them for their ignorance, stupidity, and idolatry; or by deeds, inflicting punishment upon them; so the Targum,

"therefore I will take vengeance on you, or punish you, saith the Lord:''

and with your children's children will I plead; who imitate their parents, and do the same evil things as they, which the Lord knew they would; and was particularly true of the Jews in the times of Christ, for which reason wrath came upon them to the uttermost.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Jer 2:2

¹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

² tn Heb “I remember to/for you.”

³ tn Heb “the loyal love of your youth.”

sn The Hebrew word translated “how devoted you were” (חֶסֶד, khesed) refers metaphorically to the devotion of a new bride to her husband. In typical Hebraic fashion, contemporary Israel is identified with early Israel after she first entered into covenant with (= married) the Lord. The reference to her earlier devotion is not absolute but relative. Compared to her unfaithfulness in worshiping other gods after she got into the land, the murmuring and complaining in the wilderness are ignored.

NET Notes: Jer 2:3

¹ sn Heb “the first fruits of his harvest.” Many commentators see the figure here as having theological significance for the calling of the Gentiles. It is likely, however, that in this context the metaphor – here rendered as a simile – is intended to bring out the special relationship and inviolability that Israel had with God. As the first fruits were the special possession of the Lord, to be eaten only by the priests and off limits to the common people, so Israel was God’s special possession and was not to be “eaten” by the nations.

NET Notes: Jer 2:4

¹ tn Heb “house.”

² tn Heb “house.”

NET Notes: Jer 2:5

¹ tn Heb “fathers.”

² tn Or “I did not wrong your ancestors in any way. Yet they went far astray from me.” Both translations are an attempt to render the rhetorical question which demands a negative answer.

³ tn Heb “They went/followed after.” This idiom is found most often in Deuteronomy or covenant contexts. It refers to loyalty to God and to his covenant or his commandments (e.g., 1 Kgs 14:8; 2 Chr 34:31) with the metaphor of a path or way underlying it (e.g., Deut 11:28; 28:14). To “follow other gods” was to abandon this way and this loyalty (i.e., to “abandon” or “forget” God, Judg 2:12; Hos 2:13) and to follow the customs or religious traditions of the pagan nations (e.g., 2 Kgs 17:15). The classic text on “following” God or another god is 1 Kgs 18:18, 21 where Elijah taunts the people with “halting between two opinions” whether the Lord was the true God or Baal was. The idiom is often found followed by “to serve and to worship” or “they served and worshiped” such and such a god or entity (see, e.g., Jer 8:2; 11:10; 13:10; 16:11; 25:6; 35:15).

⁴ tn The words “to me” are not in the Hebrew text but are implicit from the context: Heb “they followed after the worthless thing/things and became worthless.” There is an obvious wordplay on the verb “became worthless” and the noun “worthless thing,” which is probably to be understood collectively and to refer to idols as it does in Jer 8:19; 10:8; 14:22; Jonah 2:8.

NET Notes: Jer 2:6

¹ tn This word is erroneously rendered “shadow of death” in most older English versions; that translation is based on a faulty etymology. Contextual studies and comparative Semitic linguistics have demonstrated that the word is merely another word for darkness. It is confined to poetic texts and often carries connotations of danger and distress. It is associated in poetic texts with the darkness of a prison (Ps 107:10, 14), a mine (Job 28:3), and a ravine (Ps 23:4). Here it is associated with the darkness of the wasteland and ravines of the Sinai desert.

² sn The context suggests that the question is related to a lament where the people turn to God in their troubles, asking him for help and reminding him of his past benefactions. See for example Isa 63:11-19 and Ps 44. It is an implicit prayer for his intervention, cf. 2 Kgs 2:14.

NET Notes: Jer 2:7

¹ sn Note how contemporary Israel is again identified with her early ancestors. See the study note on 2:2.

² tn Heb “eat.”

³ sn I.e., made it ceremonially unclean. See Lev 18:19-30; Num 35:34; Deut 21:23.

⁴ tn Heb “my inheritance.” Or “the land [i.e., inheritance] I gave you,” reading the pronoun as indicating source rather than possession. The parallelism and the common use in Jeremiah of the term to refer to the land or people as the Lord’s (e.g., 12:7, 8, 9; 16:18; 50:11) make the possessive use more likely here.

sn The land belonged to the Lord; it was given to the Israelites in trust (or usufruct) as their heritage. See Lev 25:23.

NET Notes: Jer 2:8

¹ tn Heb “The priests…the ones who grasp my law…the shepherds…the prophets…they…”

² sn See the study note on 2:6.

³ tn Heb “those who handle my law.”

sn The reference is likely to the priests and Levites who were responsible for teaching the law (so Jer 18:18; cf. Deut 33:10). According to Jer 8:8 it could possibly refer to the scribes who copied the law.

⁴ tn Or “were not committed to me.” The Hebrew verb rendered “know” refers to more than mere intellectual knowledge. It carries also the ideas of emotional and volitional commitment as well intimacy. See for example its use in contexts like Hos 4:1; 6:6.

⁵ tn Heb “by Baal.”

⁶ tn Heb “and they followed after those things [the word is plural] which do not profit.” The poetic structure of the verse, four lines in which a distinct subject appears at the beginning followed by a fifth line beginning with a prepositional phrase and no distinct subject, argues that this line is climactic and refers to all four classes enumerated in the preceding lines. See W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:88-89. There may be a play or pun in the Hebrew text on the name for the god Baal (בַּעַל, ba’al) and the verb “cannot help you” (Heb “do not profit”) which is spelled יַעַל (ya’al).

NET Notes: Jer 2:9

¹ tn Or “bring charges against you.”

sn The language used here is that of the law court. In international political contexts it was the language of a great king charging his subject with breach of covenant. See for examples in earlier prophets, Isa 1:2-20; Mic 6:1-8.

² tn The words “your children and” are supplied in the translation to bring out the idea of corporate solidarity implicit in the passage.

sn The passage reflects the Hebrew concept of corporate solidarity: The actions of parents had consequences for their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Compare the usage in the ten commandments, Deut 5:10, and note the execution of the children of Dathan and Abiram, Deut 11:6, and of Achan, Josh 7:24-25.

Geneva Bible: Jer 2:2

Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD; I remember thee, the ^{( a )} kindness of thy youth, the love of thy espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, ^{( b )} in a land [that was] not sown.

^{( a )} According to that grace and favour which I showed you from the beginning, when I first chose you to be my people, and married you to myself, (Eze 16:8).

^{( b )} When I had delivered you out of Egypt.

Geneva Bible: Jer 2:3

Israel [was] ^{( c )} holiness to the LORD, [and] the firstfruits of his increase: all ^{( d )} that devour him shall offend; evil shall come upon them, saith the LORD.

^{( c )} Chosen above all others to serve the Lord only and the first offered to the Lord of all other nations.

^{( d )} Whoever challenged this people, or else annoyed them, was punished.

Geneva Bible: Jer 2:5

Thus saith the LORD, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they have gone ^{( e )} far from me, and have walked after vanity, and have become ^{( f )} vain?

^{( e )} That is, fallen to vile idolatry.

^{( f )} Altogether given to vanity, and are become blind and insensible as the idols that they serve.

Geneva Bible: Jer 2:6

Neither said they, Where [is] the LORD that brought us out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of ^{( g )} the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt?

^{( g )} Where for lack of all things needed for life, you could look for nothing every hour but present death.

Geneva Bible: Jer 2:7

And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit of it and the goodness of it but when ye entered, ye defiled ^{( h )} my land, and made my heritage an abomination.

^{( h )} By your idolatry and wicked manners, (Psa 78:58, Psa 106:38).

Geneva Bible: Jer 2:8

The priests said not, ^{( i )} Where [is] the LORD? and they that handle the ^{( k )} law knew me not: the ^{( l )} rulers also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by ^{( m )} Baal, and walked after [things that] do not profit.

^{( i )} They did not teach the people to seek after God.

^{( k )} As the scribes, who would have expounded the law to the people.

^{( l )} Meaning, the princes and ministers: signifying, that all estates were corrupt.

^{( m )} That is, spoke vain things, and brought the people from the true worship of God to serve idols: for by Baal, which was the chief idol of the Moabites, are meant all idols.

Geneva Bible: Jer 2:9

Wherefore I will yet ^{( n )} plead with you, saith the LORD, and with your children's children will I plead.

^{( n )} Signifying that he would not as he might, straightway condemn them, but shows them by evident examples their great ingratitude that they might be ashamed and repent.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Jer 2:1-37

1 God having shewed his former kindness, expostulates with the Jews on their causeless and unexampled revolt.

14 They are the causes of their own calamities.

18 The sins and idolatries of Judah.

35 Her confidence is rejected.

Maclaren: Jer 2:9

God's Lawsuit

Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the Lord, and with your children's children will I plead.'--Jer. 2:9.

POINT out that plead is a forensic term. There is a great lawsuit in which God is plaintiff and men defendants. The word is frequent in Isaiah.

I. The Reason For God's Pleading.

The cause--wherefore.' Our transgression does not make Him turn away from us. It does profoundly modify the whole relation between us. It does give an aspect of antagonism to His dealings.

II. The Manner.

The whole history of the world and of each individual. All outward providences. All the voice of Conscience.

Christ. Spirit, who convinces the world of Sin.

III. The Purpose.

Wholly our being drawn from our evil. The purely reformatory character of all punishment here. The sole object to win us back to Himself. He conquers in this lawsuit when we come to love Him.

IV. The Patience.

That merciful pleading--I will yet '--runs on through all sin, and is only made more earnest by deepening hostility. After rejections still lingers. Extends over a thousand generations. Is exercised even where He foresees failure.

MHCC: Jer 2:1-8

Those who begin well, but do not persevere, will justly be upbraided with their hopeful and promising beginnings. Those who desert religion, commonly oppose it more than those who never knew it. For this they could have no excuse. God's spiritual Israel must own their obligations to him for safe conduct through the wilderness of this world, so dangerous to the soul. Alas, that many, who once appeared devoted to the Lord, so live that their professions aggravate their crimes! Let us be careful that we do not lose in zeal and fervency, as we gain knowledge.

MHCC: Jer 2:9-13

Before God punishes sinners, he pleads with them, to bring them to repentance. He pleads with us, what we should plead with ourselves. Be afraid to think of the wrath and curse which will be the portion of those who throw themselves out of God's grace and favour. Grace in Christ is compared to water from a fountain, it being cooling and refreshing, cleansing and making fruitful: to living water, because it quickens dead sinners, revives drooping saints, supports and maintains spiritual life, and issues in eternal life, and is ever-flowing. To forsake this Fountain is the first evil; this is done when the people of God neglect his word and ordinances. They hewed them out broken cisterns, that could hold no water. Such are the world, and the things in it; such are the inventions of men when followed and depended on. Let us, with purpose of heart, cleave to the Lord only; whither else shall we go? How prone are we to forego the consolations of the Holy Spirit, for the worthless joys of the enthusiast and hypocrite!

Matthew Henry: Jer 2:1-8

Here is, I. A command given to Jeremiah to go and carry a message from God to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. He was charged in general (Jer 1:17) to go and speak to them; here he is particularly charged to go and speak this to them. Note, It is good for ministers by faith and prayer to take out a fresh commission when they address themselves solemnly to any part of their work. Let a minister carefully compare what he has to deliver with the word of God, and see that it agrees with it, that he may be able to say, not only, The Lord sent me, but, He sent me to speak this. He must go from Anathoth, where he lived in a pleasant retirement, spending his time (it is likely) among a few friends and in the study of the law, and must make his appearance at Jerusalem, that noisy tumultuous city, and cry in their ears, as a man in earnest and that would be heard: "Cry aloud, that all may hear, and none may plead ignorance. Go close to them, and cry in the ears of those that have stopped their ears."

II. The message he was commanded to deliver. He must upbraid them with their horrid ingratitude in forsaking a God who had been of old so kind to them, that this might either make them ashamed and bring them to repentance, or might justify God in turning his hand against them.

1. God here puts them in mind of the favours he had of old bestowed upon them, when they were first formed into a people (Jer 2:2): " I remember for thy sake, and I would have thee to remember it, and improve the remembrance of it for thy good; I cannot forget the kindness of thy youth and the love of thy espousals. "

(1.) This may be understood of the kindness they had for God; it was not such indeed as they had any reason to boast of, or to plead with God for favour to be shown them (for many of them were very unkind and provoking, and, when they did return and enquire early after God, they did but flatter him), yet God is pleased to mention it, and plead it with them; for, though it was but little love that they showed him, he took it kindly. When they believed the Lord and his servant Moses, when they sang God's praise at the Red Sea, when at the foot of Mount Sinai they promised, All that the Lord shall say unto us we will do and will be obedient, then was the kindness of their youth and the love of their espousals. When they seemed so forward for God he said, Surely they are my people, and will be faithful to me, children that will not lie. Note, Those that begin well and promise fair, but do not perform and persevere, will justly be upbraided with their hopeful and promising beginnings. God remembers the kindness of our youth and the love of our espousals, the zeal we then seemed to have for him and the affection wherewith we made our covenants with him, the buds and blossoms that never came to perfection; and it is good for us to remember them, that we may remember whence we have fallen, and return to our first love, Rev 2:4, Rev 2:5; Gal 4:15. In two things appeared the kindness of their youth: - [1.] That they followed the direction of the pillar of cloud and fire in the wilderness; and though sometimes they spoke of returning into Egypt, or pushing forward into Canaan, yet they did neither, but for forty years together went after God in the wilderness, and trusted him to provide for them, though it was a land that was not sown. This God took kindly, and took notice of it to their praise long after, that, though much was amiss among them, yet they never forsook the guidance they were under. Thus, though Christ often chid his disciples, yet he commended them, at parting, for continuing with him, Luk 22:28. It must be the strong affection of the youth, and the espousals, that will carry us on to follow God in a wilderness, with an implicit faith and an entire resignation; and it is a pity that those who have so followed him should ever leave him. [2.] That they entertained divine institutions, set up the tabernacle among them, and attended the service of it. Israel was then holiness to the Lord; they joined themselves to him in covenant as a peculiar people. Thus they began in the spirit, and God puts them in mind of it, that they might be ashamed of ending in the flesh.

(2.) Or it may be understood of God's kindness to them; of that he afterwards speaks largely. When Israel was a child, then I loved him, Hos 11:1. He then espoused that people to himself with all the affection with which a young man marries a virgin (Isa 62:5), for the time was a time of love, Eze 16:8. [1.] God appropriated them to himself. Though they were a sinful people, yet, by virtue of the covenant made with them and the church set up among them, they were holiness to the Lord, dedicated to his honour and taken under his special tuition; they were the first fruits of his increase, the first constituted church he had in the world; they were the first-fruits, but the full harvest was to be gathered from among the Gentiles. The first-fruits of the increase were God's part of it, were offered to him, and he was honoured with them; so were the people of the Jews; what little tribute, rent, and homage, God had from the world, he had it chiefly from them; and it was their honour to be thus set apart for God. This honour have all the saints; they are the first-fruits of his creatures, Jam 1:18. [2.] Having espoused them, he espoused their cause, and became an enemy to their enemies, Exo 23:22. Being the first-fruits of his increase, all that devoured him (so it should be read) did offend; they trespassed, they contracted guilt, and evil befel them, as those were reckoned offenders that devoured the first-fruits, or any thing else that was holy to the Lord, that embezzled them, or converted them to their own use, Lev 5:15. Whoever offered any injury to the people of God did so at their peril; their God was ready to avenge their quarrel, and said to the proudest of kings, Touch not my anointed, Psa 105:14, Psa 105:15; Exo 17:14. He had in a special manner a controversy with those that attempted to debauch them and draw them off from being holiness to the Lord; witness his quarrel with the Midianites about the matter of Peor, Num 25:17, Num 25:18. [3.] He brought them out of Egypt with a high hand and great terror (Deu 4:34), and yet with a kind hand and great tenderness led them through a vast howling wilderness (Jer 2:6), a land of deserts and pits, or of graves, terram sepulchralem - a sepulchral land, where there was ground, not to feed them, but to bury them, where there was no good to be expected, for it was a land of drought, but all manner of evil to be feared, for it was the shadow of death. In that darksome valley they walked forty years; but God was with them; his rod, in Moses's hand, and his staff, comforted them, and even there God prepared a table for them (Psa 23:4, Psa 23:5), gave them bread out of the clouds and drink out of the rocks. It was a land abandoned by all mankind, as yielding neither road nor rest. It was no thoroughfare, for no man passed through it - no settlement, for no man dwelt there. For God will teach his people to tread untrodden paths, to dwell alone, and to be singular. The difficulties of the journey are thus insisted on, to magnify the power and goodness of God in bringing them, through all, safely to their journey's end at last. All God's spiritual Israel must own their obligations to him for a safe conduct through the wilderness of this world, no less dangerous to the soul than that was to the body. [4.] At length he settled them in Canaan (Jer 2:7): I brought you into a plentiful country, which would be the more acceptable after they had been for so many years in a land of drought. They did eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof, and were allowed so to do. I brought you into a land of Carmel (so the word is); Carmel was a place of extraordinary fruitfulness, and Canaan was as one great fruitful field, Deu 8:7. [5.] God gave them the means of knowledge and grace, and communion with him; this is implied, Jer 2:8. They had priests that handled the law, read it, and expounded it to them; that was part of their business, Deu 33:8. They had pastors, to guide them and take care of their affairs, magistrates and judges; they had prophets to consult God for them and to make known his mind to them.

2. He upbraids them with their horrid ingratitude, and the ill returns they had made him for these favours; let them all come and answer to this charge (Jer 2:4); it is exhibited in the name of God against all the families of the house of Israel, for they can none of them plead, Not guilty. (1.) He challenges them to produce any instance of his being unjust and unkind to them. Though he had conferred favours upon them in some things, yet, if in other things he had dealt hardly with them, they would not have been altogether without excuse. He therefore puts it fairly to them to show cause for their deserting him (Jer 2:5): " What iniquity have your fathers found in me, or you either? Have you, upon trial, found God a hard master? Have his commands put any hardship upon you or obliged you to any thing unfit, unfair, or unbecoming you? Have his promises put any cheats upon you, or raised your expectations of things which you were afterwards disappointed of? You that have renounced your covenant with God, can you say that it was a hard bargain and that which you could not live upon? You that have forsaken the ordinances of God, can you say that it was because they were a wearisome service, or work that there was nothing to be got by? No; the disappointments you have met with were owing to yourselves, not to God. The yoke of his commandments if easy, and in the keeping of them there is great reward. "Note, Those that forsake God cannot say that he has ever given them any provocation to do so: for this we may safely appeal to the consciences of sinners; the slothful servant that offered such a plea as this had it overruled out of his own mouth, Luk 19:22. Though he afflicts us, we cannot say that there is iniquity in him; he does us no wrong. The ways of the Lord are undoubtedly equal; all the iniquity is in our ways. (2.) He charges them with being very unjust and unkind to him notwithstanding. [1.] They had quitted his service: " They have gone from me, nay, they have gone far from me. "They studied how to estrange themselves from God and their duty, and got as far as they could out of the reach of his commandments and their own convictions. Those that have deserted religion commonly set themselves at a greater distance from it, and in a greater opposition to it, than those that never knew it. [2.] They had quitted it for the service of idols, which was so much the greater reproach to God and his service; they went from him, not to better themselves, but to cheat themselves: They have walked after vanity, that is, idolatry; for an idol is a vain thing; it is nothing in the world, 1Co 8:4; Deu 32:21; Jer 14:22. Idolatrous worships are vanities, Act 14:15. Idolaters are vain, for those that make idols are like unto them (Psa 115:8), as much stocks and stones as the images they worship, and good for as little. [3.] They had with idolatry introduced all manner of wickedness. When they entered into the good land which God gave them they defiled it (Jer 2:7), by defiling themselves and disfitting themselves for the service of God. It was God's land; they were but tenants to him, sojourners in it, Lev 25:23. It was his heritage, for it was a holy land, Immanuel's land; but they made it an abomination, even to God himself, who was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel. [4.] Having forsaken God, though they soon found that they had changed for the worse, yet they had no thoughts of returning to him again, nor took any steps towards it. Neither the people nor the priests made any enquiry after him, took any thought about their duty to him, nor expressed any desire to recover his favour. First, The people said not, Where is the Lord? Jer 2:6. Though they were trained up in an observance of him as their God, and had been often told that he brought them out of the land of Egypt, to be a people peculiar to himself, yet they never asked after him nor desired the knowledge of his ways. Secondly, The priests said not, Where is the Lord? Jer 2:8. Those whose office it was to attend immediately upon him were in no concern to acquaint themselves with him, or approve themselves to him. Those who should have instructed the people in the knowledge of God took no care to get the knowledge of him themselves. The scribes, who handled the law, did not know God nor his will, could not expound the scriptures at all, or not aright. The pastors, who should have kept the flock from transgressing, were themselves ringleaders in transgression: They have transgressed against me. The pretenders to prophecy prophesied by Baal, in his name, to his honour, being backed and supported by the wicked kings to confront the Lord's prophets. Baal's prophets joined with Baal's priests, and walked after the things which do not profit, that is, after the idols which can be no way helpful to their worshippers. See how the best characters are usurped, and the best offices liable to corruption; and wonder not at the sin and ruin of a people when the blind are leaders of the blind.

Matthew Henry: Jer 2:9-13

The prophet, having shown their base ingratitude in forsaking God, here shows their unparalleled fickleness and folly (Jer 2:9): I will yet plead with you. Note, Before God punishes sinners he pleads with them, to bring them to repentance. Note, further, When much has been said of the evil of sin, still there is more to be said; when one article of the charge is made good, there is another to be urged; when we have said a great deal, still we have yet to speak on God's behalf, Job 36:2. Those that deal with sinners, for their conviction, must urge a variety of arguments and follow their blow. God had before pleaded with their fathers, and asked why they walked after vanity and became vain, Jer 2:5. Now he pleads with those who persisted in that vain conversation received by tradition from their fathers, and with their children's children, that is, with all that in every age tread in their steps. Let those that forsake God know that he is willing to argue the case fairly with them, that he may be justified when he speaks. He pleads that with us which we should plead with ourselves.

I. He shows that they acted contrary to the usage of all nations. Their neighbours were more firm and faithful to their false gods than they were to the true God. They were ambitious of being like the nations, and yet in this they were unlike them. He challenges them to produce an instance of any nation that had changed their gods (Jer 2:10, Jer 2:11) or were apt to change them. Let them survey either the old records or the present state of the isles of Chittim, Greece, and the European islands, the countries that were more polite and learned, and of Kedar, that lay south-east (as the other north-west from them), which were more rude and barbarous; and they should not find an instance of a nation that had changed their gods, though they had never done them any kindness, nor could do, for they were no gods. Such a veneration had they for their gods, so good an opinion of them, and such a respect for the choice their fathers had made, that though they were gods of wood and stone they would not change them for gods of silver and gold, no, not for the living and true God. Shall we praise them for this? We praise them not. But it may well be urged, to the reproach of Israel, that they, who were the only people that had no cause to change their God, were yet the only people that had changed him. Note, Men are with difficulty brought off from that religion which they have been brought up in, though ever so absurd and grossly false. The zeal and constancy of idolaters should shame Christians out of their coldness and inconstancy.

II. He shows that they acted contrary to the dictates of common sense, in that they not only changed (it may sometimes be our duty and wisdom to do so), but that they changed for the worse, and made a bad bargain for themselves. 1. They parted from a God who was their glory, who made them truly glorious and every way put honour upon them, one whom they might with a humble confidence glory in as theirs, who is himself a glorious God and the glory of those whose God he is; he was particularly the glory of his people Israel, for his glory had often appeared on their tabernacle. 2. They closed with gods that could do them no good, gods that do not profit their worshippers. Idolaters change God's glory into shame (Rom 1:23) and so they do their own; in dishonouring him, they disgrace and disparage themselves, and are enemies to their own interest. Note, Whatever those turn to who forsake God, it will never do them any good; it will flatter them and please them, but it cannot profit them. Heaven itself is here called upon to stand amazed at the sin and folly of these apostates from God (Jer 2:12, Jer 2:13): Be astonished, O you heavens! at this. The earth is so universally corrupt that it will take no notice of it; but let the heavens and heavenly bodies be astonished at it. Let the sun blush to see such ingratitude and be afraid to shine upon such ungrateful wretches. Those that forsook God worshipped the host of heaven, the sun, moon, and stars; but these, instead of being pleased with the adorations that were paid to them, were astonished and horribly afraid; and would rather have been very desolate, utterly exhausted (as the word is) and deprived of their light, than that it should have given occasion to any to worship them. Some refer it to the angels of heaven; if they rejoice at the return of souls to God, we may suppose that they are astonished and horribly afraid at the revolt of souls from him. The meaning is that the conduct of this people towards God was, (1.) Such as we may well be astonished and wonder at, that ever men, who pretend to reason, should do a thing so very absurd. (2.) Such as we ought to have a holy indignation at as impious, and a high affront to our Maker, whose honour every good man is jealous for. (3.) Such as we may tremble to think of the consequences of. What will be in the end hereof? Be horribly afraid to think of the wrath and curse which will be the portion of those who thus throw themselves out of God's grace and favour. Now what is it that is to be thought of with all this horror? It is this: " My people, whom I have taught and should have ruled, have committed two great evils, ingratitude and folly; they have acted contrary both to their duty and to their interest."[1.] They have affronted their God, by turning their back upon him, as if he were not worthy their notice: " They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, in whom they have an abundant and constant supply of all the comfort and relief they stand in need of, and have it freely."God is their fountain of life, Psa 36:9. There is in him an all-sufficiency of grace and strength; all our springs are in him and our streams from him; to forsake him is, in effect, to deny this. He has been to us a bountiful benefactor, a fountain of living waters, over-flowing, ever-flowing, in the gifts of his favour; to forsake him is to refuse to acknowledge his kindness and to withhold that tribute of love and praise which his kindness calls for. [2.] They have cheated themselves, they forsook their own mercies, but it was for lying vanities. They took a great deal of pains to hew themselves out cisterns, to dig pits or pools in the earth or rock which they would carry water to, or which should receive the rain; but they proved broken cisterns, false at the bottom, so that they could hold no water. When they came to quench their thirst there they found nothing but mud and mire, and the filthy sediments of a standing lake. Such idols were to their worshippers, and such a change did those experience who turned from God to them. If we make an idol of any creature-wealth, or pleasure, or honour, - if we place our happiness in it, and promise ourselves the comfort and satisfaction in it which are to be had in God only, - if we make it our joy and love, our hope and confidence, we shall find it a cistern, which we take a great deal of pains to hew out and fill, and at the best it will hold but a little water, and that dead and flat, and soon corrupting and becoming nauseous. Nay, it is a broken cistern, that cracks and cleaves in hot weather, so that the water is lost when we have most need of it, Job 6:15. Let us therefore with purpose of heart cleave to the Lord only, for whither else shall we go? He has the words of eternal life.

Keil-Delitzsch: Jer 2:1-3

" And then came to me the word of Jahveh, saying: Go and publish in the ears of Jerusalem, saying: I have remembered to thy account the love of thy youth, the lovingness of thy courtship time, thy going after me in the wilderness, in a land unsown. Holy was Israel to the Lord, his first-fruits of the produce: all who would have devoured him brought guilt upon themselves: evil came upon him, is the saying of Jahveh ." The Jer 2:2 and Jer 2:3 are not "in a certain sense the text of the following reproof" (Graf), but contain "the main idea which shows the cause of the following rebuke" (Hitz.): The Lord has rewarded the people of Israel with blessings for its love to Him. זכר with ל pers. and accus. rei means: to remember to one's account that it may stand him in good stead afterwards - cf. Neh 5:19; Neh 13:22, Neh 13:31; Psa 98:3; Psa 106:45, etc. - that it may be repaid with evil, Neh 6:14; Neh 13:29; Psa 79:8, etc. The perfect זכרתּי is to be noted, and not inverted into the present. It is a thing completed that is spoken of; what the Lord has done, not what He is going on with. He remembered to the people Israel the love of its youth. חסד , ordinarily, condescending love, graciousness and favour; here, the self-devoting, nestling love of Israel to its God. The youth of Israel is the time of the sojourn in Egypt and of the exodus thence (Hos 2:17; Hos 11:1); here the latter, as is shown by the following: lovingness of the courtship. The courtship comprises the time from the exodus out of Egypt till the concluding of the covenant at Sinai (Exo 19:8). When the Lord redeemed Israel with a strong hand out of the power of Egypt, He chose it to be His spouse, whom He bare on eagles' wings and brought unto Himself, Exo 19:4. The love of the bride to her Lord and Husband, Israel proved by its following Him as He went before in the wilderness, the land where it is not sown, i.e., followed Him gladly into the parched, barren wilderness. "Thy going after me" is decisive for the question so much debated by commentators, whether חסד and אהבה stand for the love of Israel to its God, or God's love to Israel. The latter view we find so early as Chrysostom, and still in Rosenm. and Graf; but it is entirely overthrown by the לכתּך אחרי , which Chrysost. transforms into ποιῆσας ἐξακολουθῆσαι μου , while Graf takes no notice of it. The reasons, too, which Graf, after the example of Rosenm. and Dathe, brings in support of this and against the only feasible exposition, are altogether valueless. The assertion that the facts forbid us to understand the words of the love of Israel to the Lord, because history represents the Israelites, when vixdum Aegypto egressos, as refractarios et ad aliorum deorum cultum pronos , cannot be supported by a reference to Deu 9:6, Deu 9:24; Isa 48:8; Amo 5:25., Psa 106:7. History knows of no apostasy of Israel from its God and no idolatry of the people during the time from the exodus out of Egypt till the arrival at Sinai, and of this time alone Jeremiah speaks. All the rebellions of Israel against its God fall within the time after the conclusion of the covenant at Sinai, and during the march from Sinai to Canaan. On the way from Egypt to Sinai the people murmured repeatedly, indeed, against Moses; at the Red Sea, when Pharaoh was pursuing with chariots and horsemen (Exo 14:11.); at Marah, where they were not able to drink the water for bitterness (15:24); in the wilderness of Sin, for lack of bread and meat (Jer 16:2.); and at Massah, for want of water (Jer 17:2.). But in all these cases the murmuring was no apostasy from the Lord, no rebellion against God, but an outburst of timorousness and want of proper trust in God, as is abundantly clear from the fact that in all these cases of distress and trouble God straightway brings help, with the view of strengthening the confidence of the timorous people in the omnipotence of His helping grace. Their backsliding from the Lord into heathenism begins with the worship of the golden calf, after the covenant had been entered into at Sinai (Ex 32), and is continued in the revolts on the way from Sinai to the borders of Canaan, at Taberah, at Kibroth-hattaavah (Num 11), in the desert of Paran at Kadesh (Num 13; 20); and each time it was severely punished by the Lord.

Neither are we to conclude, with J. D. Mich., that God interprets the journey through the desert in meliorem partem , and makes no mention of their offences and revolts; nor with Graf, that Jeremiah looks steadily away from all that history tells of the march of the Israelites through the desert, of their discontent and refractoriness, of the golden calf and of Baal Peor, and, idealizing the past as contrasted with the much darker present, keeps in view only the brighter side of the old times. Idealizing of this sort is found neither elsewhere in Jeremiah nor in any other prophet; nor is there anything of the kind in our verse, if we take up rightly the sense of it and the thread of the thought. It becomes necessary so to view it, only if we hold the whole forty years' sojourn of the Israelites in the wilderness to be the espousal time, and make the marriage union begin not with the covenanting at Sinai, but with the entrance of Israel into Canaan. Yet more entirely without foundation is the other assertion, that the words rightly given as the sense is, "stand in no connection with the following, since then the point in hand is the people's forgetfulness of the divine benefits, its thanklessness and apostasy, not at all the deliverances wrought by Jahveh in consideration of its former devotedness." For in Jer 2:2 it is plainly enough told how God remembered to the people its love. Israel was so shielded by Him, as His sanctuary, that whoever touched it must pay the penalty. קדשׁ are all gifts consecrated to Jahveh. The Lord has made Israel a holy offering consecrated to Him in this, that He has separated it to Himself for a סגלּה , for a precious possession, and has chosen it to be a holy people: Exo 19:5.; Deu 7:6; Deu 14:2. We can explain from the Torah of offering the further designation of Israel: his first-fruits; the first of the produce of the soil or yield of the land belonged, as קדשׁ , to the Lord: Exo 23:19; Num 8:8, etc. Israel, as the chosen people of God, as such a consecrated firstling. Inasmuch as Jahveh is Creator and Lord of the whole world, all the peoples are His possession, the harvest of His creation. But amongst the peoples of the earth He has chosen Israel to Himself for a firstling-people (, ראשׁית הגּוים Amo 6:1), and so pronounced it His sanctuary, not to be profaned by touch. Just as each laic who ate of a firstling consecrated to God incurred guilt, so all who meddled with Israel brought guilt upon their heads. The choice of the verb אכליו is also to be explained from the figure of firstling-offerings. The eating of firstling-fruit is appropriation of it to one's own use. Accordingly, by the eating of the holy people of Jahveh, not merely the killing and destroying of it is to be understood, but all laying of violent hands on it, to make it a prey, and so all injury or oppression of Israel by the heathen nations. The practical meaning of יאשׁמוּ is given by the next clause: mischief came upon them. The verbs יאשׁמוּ and תּבא dna יא are not futures; for we have here to do not with the future, but with what did take place so long as Israel showed the love of the espousal time to Jahveh. Hence rightly Hitz.: "he that would devour it must pay the penalty." An historical proof of this is furnished by the attack of the Amalekites on Israel and its result, Exo 17:8-15.

Keil-Delitzsch: Jer 2:4-8

But Israel did not remain true to its first love; it has forgotten the benefits and blessings of its God, and has fallen away from Him in rebellion.

Jer 2:4-5

"Hear the word of Jahveh, house of Jacob, and all families of the house of Israel. Jer 2:5. Thus saith Jahveh, What have your fathers found in me of wrongfulness, that they are gone far from me, and have gone after vanity, and are become vain? Jer 2:6. And they said not, Where is Jahveh that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us in the wilderness, in the land of steppes and of pits, in the land of drought and of the shadow of death, in a land that no one passes through and where no man dwells? Jer 2:7. And I brought you into a land of fruitful fields, to eat its fruit and its goodness: and ye came and defiled my land, and my heritage ye have made an abomination. Jer 2:8. The priests said not, Where is Jahveh? and they that handled the law knew me not: the shepherds fell away from me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and after them that profit not are they gone." The rebuke for ungrateful, faithless apostasy is directed against the whole people. The "house of Jacob" is the people of the twelve tribes, and the parallel member, "all families of the house of Israel," is an elucidative apposition. The "fathers" in Jer 2:5 are the ancestors of the now living race onwards from the days of the Judges, when the generation arising after the death of Joshua and his contemporaries forsook the Lord and served the Baals (Jdg 2:10.). עול , perversity, wrongfulness, used also of a single wicked deed in Psa 7:4, the opposite to acting in truth and good faith. Jahveh is a God of faithfulness ( אמוּנה ); in Him is no iniquity ( אין עול ), Deu 32:4. The question, what have they found...? is answered in the negative by Jer 2:6. To remove far from me and follow after vanity, is tantamount to forsaking Jahveh and serving the false gods (Baals), Jdg 2:11. הבל , lit., breath, thence emptiness, vanity, is applied so early as the song of Moses, Deu 32:21, to the false gods, as being nonentities. Here, however, the word means not the gods, but the worship of them, as being groundless and vain; bringing no return to him who devotes himself to it, but making him foolish and useless in thought and deed. By the apostle in Rom 1:21 יהבּלוּ is expressed by ἐματαιώ́θησαν . Cf. 2Ki 17:15, where the second hemistich of our verse is applied to the ten tribes.

Jer 2:6

They said not, Where is Jahveh? i.e., they have no longer taken any thought of Jahveh; have not recalled His benefits, though they owed to Him all they had become and all they possessed. He has brought them out of Egypt, freed them from the house of bondage (Mic 6:4), and saved them from the oppression of the Pharaohs, meant to extirpate them (Exo 3:7.). He has led them through pathless and inhospitable deserts, miraculously furnished them with bread and water, and protected them from all dangers (Deu 8:15). To show the greatness of His benefits, the wilderness is described as parched unfruitful land, as a land of deadly terrors and dangers. , ארץ ערבה land of steppes or heaths, corresponds to the land unsown of Jer 2:2. "And of pits," i.e., full of dangerous pits and chasms into which one may stumble unawares. Land of drought, where one may have to pine through thirst. And of the shadow of death: so Sheol is named in Job 10:21 as being a place of deep darkness; here, the wilderness, as a land of the terrors of death, which surround the traveller with darkness as of death: Isa 8:22; Isa 9:1; Job 16:16. A land through which no one passes, etc., i.e., which offers the traveller neither path nor shelter. Through his frightful desert God has brought His people in safety.

Jer 2:7-8

And He has done yet more. He has brought them into a fruitful and well-cultivated land. כּרמל , fruitful fields, the opposite of wilderness, Jer 4:26; Isa 29:17. To eat up its fruit and its good; cf. the enumeration of the fruits and useful products of the land of Canaan, Deu 8:7-9. And this rich and splendid land the ungrateful people have defiled by their sins and vices (cf. Lev 18:24), and idolatry (cf. Eze 36:18); and the heritage of Jahveh they have thus made an abomination, an object of horror. The land of Canaan is called "my heritage," the especial domain of Jahveh, inasmuch as, being the Lord of the earth, He is the possessor of the land and has given it to the Israelites for a possession, yet dwells in the midst of it as its real lord, Num. 25:34. - In Jer 2:8 the complaint briefly given in Jer 2:6 is expanded by an account of the conduct of the higher classes, those who gave its tone to the spirit of the people. The priests, whom God had chosen to be the ministers of His sanctuary, asked not after Him, i.e., sought neither Him nor His sanctuary. They who occupy themselves with the law, who administer the law: these too are the priests as teachers of the law (Mic 3:11), who should instruct the people as to the Lord's claims on them and commandments (Lev 10:11; Deu 33:10). They knew not Jahveh, i.e., they took no note of Him, did not seek to discover what His will and just claims were, so as to instruct the people therein, and press them to keep the law. The shepherds are the civil authorities, princes and kings (cf. Jer 23:1.): those who by their lives set the example to the people, fell away from the Lord; and the prophets, who should have preached God's word, prophesied בּבּעל , by Baal, i.e., inspired by Baal. Baal is here a generic name for all false gods; cf. Jer 23:13. , לא those who profit not, are the Baals as unreal gods; cf. Isa 44:9; 1Sa 12:21. The utterances as to the various ranks form a climax, as Hitz. rightly remarks. The ministers of public worship manifested no desire towards me; those learned in the law took no knowledge of me, of my will, of the contents of the book of the law; the civil powers went the length of rising up against my law; and the prophets fairly fell away to false gods, took inspiration from Baal, the incarnation of the lying spirit.

Keil-Delitzsch: Jer 2:9-13

Such backsliding from God is unexampled and appalling. Jer 2:9. " Therefore will I further contend with you, ad with your children's children will I contend . Jer 2:10. For go over to the islands of the Chittim, and see; and send to Kedar, and observe well, and see if such things have been ; Jer 2:11. whether a nation hath changed it gods, which indeed are no gods? but my people hath changed its glory for that which profits not . Jer 2:12 . Be horrified, ye heavens, at this, and shudder, and be sore dismayed, saith Jahveh . Jer 2:13. For double evil hath my people done; me have they forsaken, the fountain of living waters, to hew out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, the hold no water ."

In the preceding verses the fathers were charged with the backsliding from the Lord; in Jer 2:9 punishment is threatened against the now-living people of Israel, and on their children's children after them. For the people in its successive and even yet future generations constitutes a unity, and in this unity a moral personality. Since the sins of the fathers transmit themselves to the children and remoter descendants, sons and grandsons must pay the penalty of the fathers' guilt, that is, so long as they share the disposition of their ancestors. The conception of this moral unity is at the foundation of the threatening. That the present race persists in the fathers' backsliding from the Lord is clearly expressed in Jer 2:17. In "I will further chide or strive," is intimated implicite that God had chidden already up till now, or even earlier with the fathers. ריב , contend, when said of God, is actual striving or chastening with all kinds of punishment. This must God do as the righteous and holy one; for the sin of the people is an unheard of sin, seen in no other people. "The islands of the Chittim" are the isles and coast lands of the far west, as in Eze 27:6; כּתּים having originally been the name for Cyprus and the city of Cition, see in Gen 10:4. In contrast with these distant western lands, Kedar is mentioned as representative of the races of the east. The Kedarenes lived as a pastoral people in the eastern part of the desert between Arabia Petraea and Babylonia; see in Gen 25:13 and Eze 27:21. Peoples in the two opposite regions of the world are individualizingly mentioned instead of all peoples. התבּוננוּ , give good heed, serves to heighten the expression. אם = הן introduces the indirect question; cf. Ew. §324, c . The unheard of, that which has happened amongst no people, is put interrogatively for rhetorical effect. Has any heathen nation changed its gods, which indeed are not truly gods? No; no heathen nation has done this; but the people of Jahveh, Israel, has exchanged its glory, i.e., the God who made Himself known to it in His glory, for false gods that are of no profit. כּבוד is the glory in which the invisible God manifested His majesty in the world and amidst His people. Cf. the analogous title given to God, , נּאון ישׂראל Amo 8:7; Hos 5:5. The exact antithesis to כּבודו would be בּשׁת , cf. Jer 3:24; Jer 11:13; but Jeremiah chose לא to represent the exchange as not advantageous. God showed His glory to the Israelites in the glorious deeds of His omnipotence and grace, like those mentioned in Jer 2:5 and Jer 2:6. The Baals, on the other hand, are not אלהים , but, אלילים nothings, phantoms without a being, that bring no help or profit to their worshippers. Before the sin of Israel is more fully set forth, the prophet calls on heaven to be appalled at it. The heavens are addressed as that part of the creation where the glory of God is most brightly reflected. The rhetorical aim is seen in the piling up of words. חרב , lit., to be parched up, to be deprived of the life-marrow. Israel has committed two crimes: a . It has forsaken Jahveh, the fountain of living water. , מים חיּים living water, i.e., water that originates and nourishes life, is a significant figure for God, with whom is the fountain of life (Psa 36:10), i.e., from whose Spirit all life comes. Fountain of living water (here and Jer 17:13) is synonymous with well of life in Pro 10:11; Pro 13:14; Pro 14:27, Sir. 21:13. b . The other sin is this, that they hew or dig out wells, broken, rent, full of crevices, that hold no water. The delineation keeps to the same figure. The dead gods have no life and can dispense no life, just as wells with rents or fissures hold no water. The two sins, the forsaking of the living God and the seeking out of dead gods, cannot really be separated. Man, created by God and for God, cannot live without God. If he forsake the living God, he passes in spite of himself into the service of dead, unreal gods. Forsaking the living God is eo ipso exchanging Him for an imaginary god. The prophet sets the two moments of the apostasy from God side by side, so as to depict to the people with greater fulness of light the enormity of their crime. The fact in Jer 2:11 that no heathen nation changes its gods for others, has its foundation in this, that the gods of the heathen are the creations of men, and that the worship of them is moulded by the carnal-mindedness of sinful man; so that there is less inducement to change, the gods of the different nations being in nature alike. But the true God claims to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, and does not permit the nature and manner of His worship to depend on the fancies of His worshippers; He makes demands upon men that run counter to carnal nature, insisting upon the renunciation of sensual lusts and cravings and the crucifixion of the flesh, and against this corrupt carnal nature rebels. Upon this reason for the fact adduced, Jeremiah does not dwell, but lays stress on the fact itself. This he does with the view of bringing out the distinction, wide as heaven, between the true God and the false gods, to the shaming of the idolatrous people; and in order, at the same time, to scourge the folly of idolatry by giving prominence to the contrast between the glory of God and the nothingness of the idols.

Constable: Jer 2:1--45:5

II. Prophecies about Judah chs. 2--45

The first series of prophetic announcements, reflections, and incidents that comprise this part of the book deals with Jeremiah's ministry to his own people.⁶⁴ The second main division of the book contains oracles against foreign nations (chs. 46-51).

Constable: Jer 2:1--25:38

A. Warnings of judgment on Judah and Jerusalem chs. 2-25

Chapters 2-25 contain warnings and appeals to the Judahites in view of their sins and the consequences of those sins.

Constable: Jer 2:1--6:30

1. Warnings of coming punishment because of Judah's guilt chs. 2-6

Most of the material in this section is prophetic oracles that are poetic in form. There are three messages, the first indicting Judah for her evil (ch. 2), the second pleading for repentance (3:1-4:4), and the third declaring divine judgment (4:5-6:30).

". . . it is possible that at an early stage in the development of the book, this collection of prophetic oracles was brought together as a kind of summary of the prophet's early ministry."⁶⁵

"The major themes in these five chapters are (1) God's indignation against moral and social sin, (2) his love for his people and land, (3) the certainty of doom on the unrepentant nation, and (4) salvation for the believing."⁶⁶

Constable: Jer 2:1-37

Yahweh's indictment of His people for their sins ch. 2

"The whole chapter has strong reminiscences of a legal form which was well known in the secular world, the so-called rib pattern. When lesser kings offended their overlords in some act of rebellion, the overlord sent a written message by the hands of a messenger. Several of these documents are extant today. It seems clear that there was a proper legal form in which to lay a charge against a rebel. The shape was as follows: (i) an appeal to the vassal to pay heed, and a summons to the earth and the sky to act as witnesses; (ii) a series of questions each of which carried an implied accusation; (iii) a recollection of past benefits bestowed on the vassal with some statement of the offenses by which he had broken his treaty (covenant); (iv) a reference to the futility of ritual compensations, recourse to foreign cults, or other kinds of aid; (v) a declaration of culpability and a threat of judgment."⁶⁷

Chapter 2 reads like one of these documents in that it contains the basic elements. However, this was not a formal legal document that Yahweh sent to His people but a spoken message through His prophet. The form of the message undoubtedly reminded the original hearers of these rib documents and highlighted the position of the people as Yahweh's unfaithful vassals who had broken His covenant and were, therefore, in trouble with Him.

"This chapter is a powerful sermon dealing with apostasy, and was delivered with all the zeal of an evangelist, as is evident from the power and vitality of the language."⁶⁸

Constable: Jer 2:1-3

Yahweh's remembrance of Israel's past 2:1-3

2:1-2a The Lord spoke to Jeremiah and instructed him to proclaim a message to the people of Jerusalem, a message from Yahweh.

2:2b The Lord recalled how His people used to love (Heb. hesed) Him devotedly when they were following Him through the wilderness from Egypt to the Promised Land.⁶⁹ Those were the days of Israel's betrothal as a youth, before she settled down with the Lord in the land (cf. Hos. 1-3).

2:3 In those days Israel was set apart to the Lord in a way that she had not been since she entered the land and began to worship idols (cf. Exod. 19:6; 22:31). She was His firstfruits among the nations that He would bless (cf. Gen. 12:1-3; Lev. 23:10, 17; Deut. 25:1-11). The Lord punished peoples who tried to devour the Israelites then as He punished those who ate His firstfruit offerings without divine authorization (Lev. 22:10, 16).

Constable: Jer 2:4-8

Yahweh's claims to having dealt justly with His people 2:4-8

The general flow of thought in this early part of Jeremiah's message is from Israel's early devotion to Yahweh (vv. 2-3) to her departure from Him (vv. 4-13) to the tragic results of her unfaithfulness (vv. 14-19). In this second pericope the irrationality of Israel's apostasy stands out.

2:4 Jeremiah appealed to all the Israelites in his audience to hear what God had to say to them.⁷⁰

2:5 The Lord wanted to know what He had done to provoke His people to leave Him and pursue other gods that left them empty.⁷¹

2:6 The Israelites had not even asked themselves where the Lord who had redeemed them in the Exodus and preserved them through the wilderness was. They totally disregarded Him.

2:7 The Lord had brought His people into a fruitful land and had given them its produce and wealth, but they had defiled His land with their sins and made it an abomination with their idolatry.

2:8 The leaders of the people were no better than the ordinary citizens. The priests, rulers, and (false) prophets all failed to direct the people to Yahweh and, instead, led them away from Him into unprofitable pursuits.⁷² The priests should have encouraged the people to be faithful to the covenant and should have kept the sacrificial system pure. The governmental rulers (lit. shepherds) should have directed the people to the Lord rather than away from Him. And many professing prophets, instead of bringing messages from the Lord, brought alleged directions from Baal and followed vain pursuits.

"The reference to Baal here and elsewhere in the prophecy is to idols in general."⁷³

"Surely this has something to do with the message we must speak to our post-Christian world. We must treat men with love, we must treat them and talk to them humanly. But we must not tone down our message: the religious leaders of our day too are leading people astray."⁷⁴

Constable: Jer 2:9-13

Yahweh's promise to contend with His people 2:9-13

2:9 Because of their unparalleled idolatry, the Lord promised to contest His people. Even their grandchildren would experience His discipline because of the sins of their forefathers.

". . . Scripture often stresses the solidarity of one generation with another, endorsing our sense of pride or shame over our collective past."⁷⁵

2:10-11 The Lord challenged His people to look to other nations to see if any of them had done what they had done. None of their neighbor nations had ever forsaken gods whom they thought had blessed them in the past. This was true of them all, from Kittim (Cyprus) to Israel's northwest to Kedar (in the Arabian Desert) to the southeast (cf. Gen. 10:4; 25:13). Yet the Israelites had forsaken the only true God who had made them a glorious people for gods that did not give them anything.

2:12 Yahweh called the heavens as witnesses to Israel's folly (cf. Deut. 32:1; Isa. 1:2; Mic. 6:1; et al.). They could only be appalled and shudder at such foolishness and feel desolate over such apostasy.

2:13 The Israelites had committed two evils, one a sin of omission and the other a sin of commission. They had forsaken Yahweh who, like a fountain, had provided for their deepest needs (cf. Ps. 36:9; John 4:10-14; Rev. 21:6). And they had pursued idols who, like broken cisterns, could not even hold water much less provide it. The most reliable source of water in Israel was a natural spring, and the least reliable was a cistern.

"The best cisterns, even those in solid rock, are strangely liable to crack, and are a most unreliable source of supply of that absolutely indispensable article, water; and if, by constant care, they are made to hold, yet the water, collected from clay roofs or from marly soil, has the color of weak soapsuds, the taste of the earth or the stable, is full of worms, and in the hour of greatest need it utterly fails. Who but a fool positive, or one gone mad in love of filth, would exchange the sweet, wholesome stream of a living fountain for such an uncertain compound of nastiness and vermin!"⁷⁶

Introduction / Outline

JFB: Jeremiah (Book Introduction)

JEREMIAH, son of Hilkiah, one of the ordinary priests, dwelling in Anathoth of Benjamin (Jer 1:1), not the Hilkiah the high priest who discovered the book of the law (2Ki 22:8); had he been the same, the designation would have been "the priest", or "the high priest". Besides, his residence at Anathoth shows that he belonged to the line of Abiathar, who was deposed from the high priesthood by Solomon (1Ki 2:26-35), after which the office remained in Zadok's line. Mention occurs of Jeremiah in 2Ch 35:25; 2Ch 36:12, 2Ch 36:21. In 629 B.C. the thirteenth year of King Josiah, while still very young (Jer 1:5), he received his prophetical call in Anathoth (Jer 1:2); and along with Hilkiah the high priest, the prophetess Huldah, and the prophet Zephaniah, he helped forward Josiah's reformation of religion (2Ki. 23:1-25). Among the first charges to him was one that he should go and proclaim God's message in Jerusalem (Jer 2:2). He also took an official tour to announce to the cities of Judah the contents of the book of the law, found in the temple (Jer 11:6) five years after his call to prophesy. On his return to Anathoth, his countrymen, offended at his reproofs, conspired against his life. To escape their persecutions (Jer 11:21), as well as those of his own family (Jer 12:6), he left Anathoth and resided at Jerusalem. During the eighteen years of his ministry in Josiah's reign he was unmolested; also during the three months of Jehoahaz or Shallum's reign (Jer 22:10-12). On Jehoiakim's accession it became evident that Josiah's reformation effected nothing more than a forcible repression of idolatry and the establishment of the worship of God outwardly. The priests, prophets, and people then brought Jeremiah before the authorities, urging that he should be put to death for his denunciations of evil against the city (Jer 26:8-11). The princes, however, especially Ahikam, interposed in his behalf (Jer 26:16, Jer 26:24), but he was put under restraint, or at least deemed it prudent not to appear in public. In the fourth year of Jehoiakim (606 B.C.), he was commanded to write the predictions given orally through him, and to read them to the people. Being "shut up", he could not himself go into the house of the Lord (Jer 36:5); he therefore deputed Baruch, his amanuensis, to read them in public on the fast day. The princes thereupon advised Baruch and Jeremiah to hide themselves from the king's displeasure. Meanwhile they read the roll to the king, who was so enraged that he cut it with a knife and threw it into the fire; at the same time giving orders for the apprehension of the prophet and Baruch. They escaped Jehoiakim's violence, which had already killed the prophet Urijah (Jer 26:20-23). Baruch rewrote the words, with additional prophecies, on another roll (Jer 36:27-32). In the three months' reign of Jehoiachin or Jeconiah, he prophesied the carrying away of the king and the queen mother (Jer 13:18; Jer 22:24-30; compare 2Ki 24:12). In this reign he was imprisoned for a short time by Pashur (Jer. 20:1-18), the chief governor of the Lord's house; but at Zedekiah's accession he was free (Jer 37:4), for the king sent to him to "inquire of the Lord" when Nebuchadnezzar came up against Jerusalem (Jer 21:1-3, &c.; Jer 37:3). The Chaldeans drew off on hearing of the approach of Pharaoh's army (Jer 37:5); but Jeremiah warned the king that the Egyptians would forsake him, and the Chaldeans return and burn up the city (Jer 37:7-8). The princes, irritated at this, made the departure of Jeremiah from the city during the respite a pretext for imprisoning him, on the allegation of his deserting to the Chaldeans (Jer 38:1-5). He would have been left to perish in the dungeon of Malchiah, but for the intercession of Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian (Jer 38:6-13). Zedekiah, though he consulted Jeremiah in secret yet was induced by his princes to leave Jeremiah in prison (Jer 38:14-28) until Jerusalem was taken. Nebuchadnezzar directed his captain, Nebuzar-adan, to give him his freedom, so that he might either go to Babylon or stay with the remnant of his people as he chose. As a true patriot, notwithstanding the forty and a half years during which his country had repaid his services with neglect and persecution, he stayed with Gedaliah, the ruler appointed by Nebuchadnezzar over Judea (Jer 40:6). After the murder of Gedaliah by Ishmael, Johanan, the recognized ruler of the people, in fear of the Chaldeans avenging the murder of Gedaliah, fled with the people to Egypt, and forced Jeremiah and Baruch to accompany him, in spite of the prophet's warning that the people should perish if they went to Egypt, but be preserved by remaining in their land (Jer. 41:1-43:13). At Tahpanhes, a boundary city on the Tanitic or Pelustan branch of the Nile, he prophesied the overthrow of Egypt (Jer 43:8-13). Tradition says he died in Egypt. According to the PSEUDO-EPIPHANIUS, he was stoned at Taphnæ or Tahpanhes. The Jews so venerated him that they believed he would rise from the dead and be the forerunner of Messiah (Mat 16:14).

HAVERNICK observes that the combination of features in Jeremiah's character proves his divine mission; mild, timid, and susceptible of melancholy, yet intrepid in the discharge of his prophetic functions, not sparing the prince any more than the meanest of his subjects--the Spirit of prophecy controlling his natural temper and qualifying him for his hazardous undertaking, without doing violence to his individuality. Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Daniel, and Ezekiel were his contemporaries. The last forms a good contrast to Jeremiah, the Spirit in his case acting on a temperament as strongly marked by firmness as Jeremiah's was by shrinking and delicate sensitiveness. Ezekiel views the nation's sins as opposed to righteousness--Jeremiah, as productive of misery; the former takes the objective, the latter the subjective, view of the evils of the times. Jeremiah's style corresponds to his character: he is peculiarly marked by pathos, and sympathy with the wretched; his Lamentations illustrate this; the whole series of elegies has but one object--to express sorrow for his fallen country; yet the lights and images in which he presents this are so many, that the reader, so far from feeling it monotonous, is charmed with the variety of the plaintive strains throughout. The language is marked by Aramæisms, which probably was the ground of JEROME'S charge that the style is "rustic". LOWTH denies the charge and considers him in portions not inferior to Isaiah. His heaping of phrase on phrase, the repetition of stereotyped forms--and these often three times--are due to his affected feelings and to his desire to intensify the expression of them; he is at times more concise, energetic, and sublime, especially against foreign nations, and in the rhythmical parts.

The principle of the arrangement of his prophecies is hard to ascertain. The order of kings was--Josiah (under whom he prophesied eighteen years), Jehoahaz (three months), Jehoiakim (eleven years), Jeconiah (three months), Zedekiah (eleven years). But his prophecies under Josiah (the first through twentieth chapters) are immediately followed by a portion under Zedekiah (the twenty-first chapter). Again, Jer 24:8-10, as to Zedekiah, comes in the midst of the section as to Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, and Jeconiah (the twenty-second, twenty-third, twenty-fifth chapters, &c.) So the thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth chapters as to Jehoiakim, follow the twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth, thirty-third, thirty-fourth chapters, as to Zedekiah; and the forty-fifth chapter, dated the fourth year of Jehoiakim, comes after predictions as to the Jews who fled to Egypt after the overthrow of Jerusalem. EWALD thinks the present arrangement substantially Jeremiah's own; the various portions are prefaced by the same formula, "The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord" (Jer 7:1; Jer 11:1; Jer 18:1; Jer 21:1; Jer 25:1; Jer 30:1; Jer 32:1; Jer 34:1, Jer 34:8; Jer 35:1; Jer 40:1; Jer 44:1; compare Jer 14:1; Jer 46:1; Jer 47:1; Jer 49:34). Notes of time mark other divisions more or less historical (Jer 26:1; Jer 27:1; Jer 36:1; Jer 37:1). Two other portions are distinct of themselves (Jer 29:1; Jer 45:1). The second chapter has the shorter introduction which marks the beginning of a strophe; the third chapter seems imperfect, having as the introduction merely "saying" (Jer 3:1, Hebrew). Thus in the poetical parts, there are twenty-three sections divided into strophes of from seven to nine verses, marked some way thus, "The Lord said also unto me". They form five books: I. The Introduction, first chapter II. Reproofs of the Jews, the second through twenty-fourth chapters, made up of seven sections: (1) the second chapter (2) the third through sixth chapters; (3) the seventh through tenth chapters; (4) the eleventh through thirteenth chapters; (5) the fourteenth through seventeenth chapters; (6) the seventeenth through nineteenth and twentieth chapters; (7) the twenty-first through twenty-fourth chapters. III. Review of all nations in two sections: the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth through forty-ninth chapters, with a historical appendix of three sections, (1) the twenty-sixth chapter; (2) the twenty-seventh chapter; (3) the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth chapters. IV. Two sections picturing the hopes of brighter times, (1) the thirtieth and thirty-first chapters; (2) the thirty-second and thirty-third chapters; and an historical appendix in three sections: (1) Jer 34:1-7; (2) Jer 34:8-22; (3) Jer. 35:1-19. V. The conclusion, in two sections: (1) Jer 36:2; (2) Jer 45:1-5. Subsequently, in Egypt, he added Jer 46:13-26 to the previous prophecy as to Egypt; also the three sections, the thirty-seventh through thirty-ninth chapters; fortieth through forty-third chapters; and forty-fourth chapter. The fifty-second chapter was probably (see Jer 51:64) an appendix from a later hand, taken from 2Ki 24:18, &c.; 2Ki 25:30. The prophecies against the several foreign nations stand in a different order in the Hebrew from that of the Septuagint; also the prophecies against them in the Hebrew (the forty-sixth through fifty-first chapters) are in the Septuagint placed after Jer 25:14, forming the twenty-sixth and thirty-first chapters; the remainder of the twenty-fifth chapter of the Hebrew is the thirty-second chapter of the Septuagint. Some passages in the Hebrew (Jer 27:19-22; Jer 33:14-26; Jer 39:4-14 Jer 48:45-47) are not found in the Septuagint; the Greek translators must have had a different recension before them; probably an earlier one. The Hebrew is probably the latest and fullest edition from Jeremiah's own hand. See on Jer 25:13. The canonicity of his prophecies is established by quotations of them in the New Testament (see Mat 2:17; Mat 16:14; Heb 8:8-12; on Mat 27:9, see on Introduction to Zechariah); also by the testimony of Ecclesiasticus 49:7, which quotes Jer 1:10; of PHILO, who quotes his word as an "oracle"; and of the list of canonical books in MELITO, ORIGEN, JEROME, and the Talmud.

JFB: Jeremiah (Outline)

• EXPOSTULATION WITH THE JEWS, REMINDING THEM OF THEIR FORMER DEVOTEDNESS, AND GOD'S CONSEQUENT FAVOR, AND A DENUNCIATION OF GOD'S COMING JUDGMENTS FOR THEIR IDOLATRY. (Jer. 2:1-37)
• GOD'S MERCY NOTWITHSTANDING JUDAH'S VILENESS. (Jer. 3:1-25)
• CONTINUATION OF ADDRESS TO THE TEN TRIBES OF ISRAEL. (Jer 4:1-2). THE PROPHET TURNS AGAIN TO JUDAH, TO WHOM HE HAD ORIGINALLY BEEN SENT (Jer. 4:3-31). (Jer. 4:1-31)
• THE CAUSE OF THE JUDGMENTS TO BE INFLICTED IS THE UNIVERSAL CORRUPTION OF THE PEOPLE. (Jer. 5:1-31)
• ZION'S FOES PREPARE WAR AGAINST HER: HER SINS ARE THE CAUSE. (Jer. 6:1-30)
• THE SEVENTH THROUGH NINTH CHAPTERS. DELIVERED IN THE BEGINNING OF JEHOIAKIM'S REIGN, ON THE OCCASION OF SOME PUBLIC FESTIVAL. (Jer. 7:1-34)
• THE JEW'S COMING PUNISHMENT; THEIR UNIVERSAL AND INCURABLE IMPENITENCE. (Jer. 8:1-22) The victorious Babylonians were about to violate the sanctuaries of the dead in search of plunder; for ornaments, treasures, and insignia of royalty were usually buried with kings. Or rather, their purpose was to do the greatest dishonor to the dead (Isa 14:19).
• JEREMIAH'S LAMENTATION FOR THE JEWS' SINS AND CONSEQUENT PUNISHMENT. (Jer. 9:1-26) This verse is more fitly joined to the last chapter, as Jer 9:23 in the Hebrew (compare Isa 22:4; Lam 2:11; Lam 3:48).
• CONTRAST BETWEEN THE IDOLS AND JEHOVAH. THE PROPHET'S LAMENTATION AND PRAYER. (Jer. 10:1-25)
• EPITOME OF THE COVENANT FOUND IN THE TEMPLE IN JOSIAH'S REIGN. JUDAH'S REVOLT FROM IT, AND GOD'S CONSEQUENT WRATH. (Jer. 11:1-23)
• CONTINUATION OF THE SUBJECT AT THE CLOSE OF THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER. (Jer. 12:1-17) (Psa 51:4).
• SYMBOLICAL PROPHECY. (Jer 13:1-7). (Jer. 13:1-27)
• PROPHECIES ON THE OCCASION OF A DROUGHT SENT IN JUDGMENT ON JUDEA. (Jer. 14:1-22) Literally, "That which was the word of Jehovah to Jeremiah concerning the dearth"
• GOD'S REPLY TO JEREMIAH'S INTERCESSORY PRAYER. (Jer. 15:1-21)
• CONTINUATION OF THE PREVIOUS PROPHECY. (Jer. 16:1-21)
• THE JEWS' INVETERATE LOVE OF IDOLATRY. (Jer. 17:1-27) The first of the four clauses relates to the third, the second to the fourth, by alternate parallelism. The sense is: They are as keen after idols as if their propensity was "graven with an iron pen (Job 19:24) on their hearts," or as if it were sanctioned by a law "inscribed with a diamond point" on their altars. The names of their gods used to be written on "the horns of the altars" (Act 17:23). As the clause "on their hearts" refers to their inward propensity, so "on . . . altars," the outward exhibition of it. Others refer "on the horns of . . . altars" to their staining them with the blood of victims, in imitation of the Levitical precept (Exo 29:12; Lev 4:7, Lev 4:18), but "written . . . graven," would thus be inappropriate.
• GOD, AS THE SOLE SOVEREIGN, HAS AN ABSOLUTE RIGHT TO DEAL WITH NATIONS ACCORDING TO THEIR CONDUCT TOWARDS HIM; ILLUSTRATED IN A TANGIBLE FORM BY THE POTTER'S MOULDING OF VESSELS FROM CLAY. (Jer. 18:1-23)
• THE DESOLATION OF THE JEWS FOR THEIR SINS FORETOLD IN THE VALLEY OF HINNOM; THE SYMBOL OF BREAKING A BOTTLE. (Jer 19:1-15)
• JEREMIAH'S INCARCERATION BY PASHUR, THE PRINCIPAL OFFICER OF THE TEMPLE, FOR PROPHESYING WITHIN ITS PRECINCTS; HIS RENEWED PREDICTIONS AGAINST THE CITY, &c., ON HIS LIBERATION. (Jer. 20:1-18)
• ZEDEKIAH CONSULTS JEREMIAH WHAT IS TO BE THE EVENT OF THE WAR: GOD'S ANSWER. (Jer 21:1-14)
• EXHORTATION TO REPENTANCE; JUDGMENT ON SHALLUM, JEHOIAKIM, AND CONIAH. (Jer. 22:1-30)
• THE WICKED RULERS TO BE SUPERSEDED BY THE KING, WHO SHOULD REIGN OVER THE AGAIN UNITED PEOPLES, ISRAEL AND JUDAH. (Jer. 23:1-40)
• THE RESTORATION OF THE CAPTIVES IN BABYLON AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE REFRACTORY PARTY IN JUDEA AND IN EGYPT, REPRESENTED UNDER THE TYPE OF A BASKET OF GOOD, AND ONE OF BAD, FIGS. (Jer 24:1-10)
• PROPHECY OF THE SEVENTY YEARS CAPTIVITY; AND AFTER THAT THE DESTRUCTION OF BABYLON, AND OF ALL THE NATIONS THAT OPPRESSED THE JEWS. (Jer. 25:1-38)
• JEREMIAH DECLARED WORTHY OF DEATH, BUT BY THE INTERPOSITION OF AHIKAM SAVED; THE SIMILAR CASES OF MICAH AND URIJAH BEING ADDUCED IN THE PROPHET'S FAVOR. (Jer. 26:1-24)
• THE FUTILITY OF RESISTING NEBUCHADNEZZAR ILLUSTRATED TO THE AMBASSADORS OF THE KING, DESIRING TO HAVE THE KING OF JUDAH CONFEDERATE WITH THEM, UNDER THE TYPE OF YOKES. JEREMIAH EXHORTS THEM AND ZEDEKIAH TO YIELD. (Jer. 27:1-22)
• PROPHECIES IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THOSE IN THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER. HANANIAH BREAKS THE YOKES TO SIGNIFY THAT NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S YOKE SHALL BE BROKEN. JEREMIAH FORETELLS THAT YOKES OF IRON ARE TO SUCCEED THOSE OF WOOD, AND THAT HANANIAH SHALL DIE. (Jer. 28:1-17)
• LETTER OF JEREMIAH TO THE CAPTIVES IN BABYLON, TO COUNTERACT THE ASSURANCES GIVEN BY THE FALSE PROPHETS OF A SPEEDY RESTORATION. (Jer. 29:1-32)
• RESTORATION OF THE JEWS FROM BABYLON AFTER ITS CAPTURE, AND RAISING UP OF MESSIAH. (Jer. 30:1-24)
• CONTINUATION OF THE PROPHECY IN THE THIRTIETH CHAPTER. (Jer. 31:1-40)
• JEREMIAH, IMPRISONED FOR HIS PROPHECY AGAINST JERUSALEM, BUYS A PATRIMONIAL PROPERTY (HIS RELATIVE HANAMEEL'S), IN ORDER TO CERTIFY TO THE JEWS THEIR FUTURE RETURN FROM BABYLON. (Jer 32:1-14)
• PROPHECY OF THE RESTORATION FROM BABYLON, AND OF MESSIAH AS KING AND PRIEST. (Jer. 33:1-26)
• CAPTIVITY OF ZEDEKIAH AND THE PEOPLE FORETOLD FOR THEIR DISOBEDIENCE AND PERFIDY. (Jer. 34:1-22)
• PROPHECY IN THE REIGN OF JEHOIAKIM, WHEN THE CHALDEANS, IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE SYRIANS AND MOABITES, INVADED JUDEA. (Jer. 35:1-19)
• BARUCH WRITES, AND READS PUBLICLY JEREMIAH'S PROPHECIES COLLECTED IN A VOLUME. THE ROLL IS BURNT BY JEHOIAKIM, AND WRITTEN AGAIN BY BARUCH AT JEREMIAH'S DICTATION. (Jer. 36:1-32)
• HISTORICAL SECTIONS, THIRTY-SEVENTH THROUGH FORTY-FOURTH CHAPTERS. THE CHALDEANS RAISE THE SIEGE TO GO AND MEET PHARAOH-HOPHRA. ZEDEKIAH SENDS TO JEREMIAH TO PRAY TO GOD IN BEHALF OF THE JEWS: IN VAIN, JEREMIAH TRIES TO ESCAPE TO HIS NATIVE PLACE, BUT IS ARRESTED. ZEDEKIAH ABATES THE RIGOR OF HIS IMPRISONMENT. (Jer. 37:1-21)
• JEREMIAH PREDICTS THE CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM, FOR WHICH HE IS CAST INTO A DUNGEON, BUT IS TRANSFERRED TO THE PRISON COURT ON THE INTERCESSION OF EBED-MELECH, AND HAS A SECRET INTERVIEW WITH ZEDEKIAH. (Jer. 38:1-28)
• JERUSALEM TAKEN. ZEDEKIAH'S FATE. JEREMIAH CARED FOR. EBED-MELECH ASSURED. (Jer. 39:1-18)
• JEREMIAH IS SET FREE AT RAMAH, AND GOES TO GEDALIAH, TO WHOM THE REMNANT OF JEWS REPAIR. JOHANAN WARNS GEDALIAH OF ISHMAEL'S CONSPIRACY IN VAIN. (Jer. 40:1-16)
• ISHMAEL MURDERS GEDALIAH AND OTHERS, THEN FLEES TO THE AMMONITES. JOHANAN PURSUES HIM, RECOVERS THE CAPTIVES, AND PURPOSES TO FLEE TO EGYPT FOR FEAR OF THE CHALDEANS. (Jer. 41:1-18)
• THE JEWS AND JOHANAN INQUIRE OF GOD, THROUGH JEREMIAH, AS TO GOING TO EGYPT, PROMISING OBEDIENCE TO HIS WILL. THEIR SAFETY ON CONDITION OF STAYING IN JUDEA, AND THEIR DESTRUCTION IN THE EVENT OF GOING TO EGYPT, ARE FORETOLD. THEM HYPOCRISY IN ASKING FOR COUNSEL WHICH THEY MEANT NOT TO FOLLOW, IF CONTRARY TO THEIR OWN DETERMINATION, IS REPROVED. (Jer. 42:1-22)
• THE JEWS CARRY JEREMIAH AND BARUCH INTO EGYPT. JEREMIAH FORETELLS BY A TYPE THE CONQUEST OF EGYPT BY NEBUCHADNEZZAR, AND THE FATE OF THE FUGITIVES. (Jer 43:1-13)
• JEREMIAH REPROVES THE JEWS FOR THEIR IDOLATRY IN EGYPT, AND DENOUNCES GOD'S JUDGMENTS ON THEM AND EGYPT ALIKE. (Jer. 44:1-30)
• JEREMIAH COMFORTS BARUCH. (Jer 45:1-5)
• THE PROPHECIES, FORTY-SIXTH THROUGH FIFTY-SECOND CHAPTERS, REFER TO FOREIGN PEOPLES. (Jer. 46:1-28) General heading of the next six chapters of prophecies concerning the Gentiles; the prophecies are arranged according to nations, not by the dates.
• PROPHECY AGAINST THE PHILISTINES. (Jer 47:1-7) Pharaoh-necho probably smote Gaza on his return after defeating Josiah at Megiddo (2Ch 35:20) [GROTIUS]. Or, Pharaoh-hophra (Jer 37:5, Jer 37:7) is intended: probably on his return from his fruitless attempt to save Jerusalem from the Chaldeans, he smote Gaza in order that his expedition might not be thought altogether in vain [CALVIN] (Amo 1:6-7).
• PROPHECY AGAINST MOAB. (Jer. 48:1-47)
• PREDICTIONS AS TO AMMON, IDUMEA, DAMASCUS, KEDAR, HAZOR, AND ELAM. (Jer. 49:1-39)
• BABYLON'S COMING DOWNFALL; ISRAEL'S REDEMPTION. (Jer. 50:1-46) Compare Isa. 45:1-47:15. But as the time of fulfilment drew nearer, the prophecies are now proportionally more distinct than then.
• CONTINUATION OF THE PROPHECY AGAINST BABYLON BEGUN IN THE FIFTIETH CHAPTER. (Jer. 51:1-64)
• WRITTEN BY SOME OTHER THAN JEREMIAH (PROBABLY EZRA) AS AN HISTORICAL SUPPLEMENT TO THE PREVIOUS PROPHECIES. (Jer. 52:1-34)

TSK: Jeremiah 2 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Jer 2:1, God having shewed his former kindness, expostulates with the Jews on their causeless and unexampled revolt; Jer 2:14, They are the causes of their own calamities; Jer 2:18, The sins and idolatries of Judah; Jer 2:35, Her confidence is rejected.

Poole: Jeremiah (Book Introduction)

BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH

THE ARGUMENT

IT was the great unhappiness of this prophet to be a physician to, but that could not save, a dying state, their disease still prevailing against the remedy; and indeed no wonder that all things were so much out of order, when the book of the law had been wanting above sixty years. He was called to be a teacher in his youth, in the days of good Josiah, being sanctified and ordained by God to his prophetical office from his mother’ s womb, Jer 1:5 in a very evil time, though the people afterward proved much worse upon the death of that good king. He setting himself against the torrent of the corruptions of the times, was always opposed and unkindly treated by his ungrateful countrymen, as also by false prophets, and the priests, princes, and people, who encouraged all their impieties and unrighteousness. At length he threatened their destruction and captivity by the Chaldeans, which he lived to see, but foretells their return after seventy years; all which accordingly came to pass. He doth also, notwithstanding his dreadful threatenings, intermix divers comfortable promises of the Messiah, and the days of the gospel; he denounceth also heavy judgments against the heathens nations that had afflicted God’ s people, both such as were near, and also more remote, as Egypt, the Philistines, Moab, Edomites, Ammonites, Damascus, Kedar, Hazor, Elam, but especially Babylon herself, that is made so great a type of the antichristian Babylon in the New Testament. Upon the murder of Gedaliah, whom the Chaldeans had made governor of Judea, he was forcibly against his will carried into Egypt, where (after he had prophesied from first to last between forty and fifty years) probably he died; some say he was stoned.

Whatever else we hear mentioned of his writings, they are either counterfeit, as the Prophecies of Baruch, &c., or it is likely we have the sum of them in this book, though possibly some of his sermons might have had some enlargements in that roll which, by his appointment, was written by Baruch, Jer 36:2 , &c.

Poole: Jeremiah 2 (Chapter Introduction)

CHAPTER 2

God’ s numerous and continued mercies render the Jews in their idolatry inexcusable, and unparalleled in any nation; and themselves the causes of their calamities, Jer 2:1-19 . Their gross idolatry, Jer 2:20-28 ; incorrigibleness, blood-shedding, and hypocrisy, Jer 2:29-37 .

Now God begins by Jeremiah to deal with the Jews, and to put him upon his work, having fitted him for it: this seeming to be his first sermon, it notes speed, and quick despatch about his business.

MHCC: Jeremiah (Book Introduction)

Jeremiah was a priest, a native of Anathoth, in the tribe of Benjamin. He was called to the prophetic office when very young, about seventy years after the death of Isaiah, and exercised it for about forty years with great faithfulness, till the sins of the Jewish nation came to their full measure and destruction followed. The prophecies of Jeremiah do not stand as they were delivered. Blayney has endeavoured to arrange them in more regular order, namely, ch. 1-20; 22; 23; 25; 26; 35; 36; Jer 45:1-5; Jer 24:1-10; 29; 30; 31; 27; 28; Jer 21:1-14; 34; 37; 32; 33; 38; 39; (Jer 39:15-18, Jer 39:1-14.) 40-44; 46-52. The general subject of his prophecies is the idolatry and other sins of the Jews; the judgments by which they were threatened, with references to their future restoration and deliverance, and promises of the Messiah. They are remarkable for plain and faithful reproofs, affectionate expostulations, and awful warnings.

MHCC: Jeremiah 2 (Chapter Introduction)

(Jer 2:1-8) God expostulates with his people.

(Jer 2:9-13) Their revolt beyond example.

(Jer 2:14-19) Guilt the cause of sufferings.

(Jer 2:20-28) The sins of Judah.

(Jer 2:29-37) Their false confidence.

Matthew Henry: Jeremiah (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah

The Prophecies of the Old Testament, as the Epistles of the New, are placed rather according to their bulk than their seniority - the longest first, not the oldest. There were several prophets, and writing ones, that were contemporaries with Isaiah, as Micah, or a little before him, as Hosea, and Joel, and Amos, or soon after him, as Habakkuk and Nahum are supposed to have been; and yet the prophecy of Jeremiah, who began many years after Isaiah finished, is placed next to his, because there is so much in it. Where we meet with most of God's word, there let the preference be given; and yet those of less gifts are not to be despised nor excluded. Nothing now occurs to be observed further concerning prophecy in general; but concerning this prophet Jeremiah we may observe, I. That he was betimes a prophet; he began young, and therefore could say, from his own experience, that it is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth, the yoke both of service and of affliction, Lam 3:27. Jerome observes that Isaiah, who had more years over his head, had his tongue touched with a coal of fire, to purge away his iniquity (Isa 6:7), but that when God touched Jeremiah's mouth, who was yet but young, nothing was said of the purging of his iniquity (Jer 1:9), because, by reason of his tender years, he had not so much sin to answer for. II. That he continued long a prophet, some reckon fifty years, others above forty. He began in the thirteenth year of Josiah, when things went well under that good king, but he continued through all the wicked reigns that followed; for when we set out for the service of God, though the wind may then be fair and favourable, we know not how soon it may turn and be tempestuous. III. That he was a reproving prophet, was sent in God's name to tell Jacob of their sins and to warn them of the judgments of God that were coming upon them; and the critics observe that therefore his style or manner of speaking is more plain and rough, and less polite, than that of Isaiah and some others of the prophets. Those that are sent to discover sin ought to lay aside the enticing words of man's wisdom. Plain-dealing is best when we are dealing with sinners to bring them to repentance. IV. That he was a weeping prophet; so he is commonly called, not only because he penned the Lamentations, but because he was all along a mournful spectator of the sins of his people and of the desolating judgments that were coming upon them. And for this reason, perhaps, those who imagined our Saviour to be one of the prophets thought him of any of them to be most like to Jeremiah (Mat 16:14), because he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. V. That he was a suffering prophet. He was persecuted by his own people more than any of them, as we shall find in the story of this book; for he lived and preached just before the Jews' destruction by the Chaldeans, when their character seems to have been the same as it was just before their destruction by the Romans, when they killed the Lord Jesus, and persecuted his disciples, pleased not God, and were contrary to all men, for wrath had come upon them to the uttermost, 1Th 2:15, 1Th 2:16. The last account we have of him in his history is that the remaining Jews forced him to go down with them into Egypt; whereas the current tradition is, among Jews and Christians, that he suffered martyrdom. Hottinger, out of Elmakin, an Arabic historian, relates that, continuing to prophesy in Egypt against the Egyptians and other nations, he was stoned to death; and that long after, when Alexander entered Egypt, he took up the bones of Jeremiah where they were buried in obscurity, and carried them to Alexandria, and buried them there. The prophecies of this book which we have in the first nineteen chapters seem to be the heads of the sermons he preached in a way of general reproof for sin and denunciation of judgment; afterwards they are more particular and occasional, and mixed with the history of his day, but not placed in due order of time. With the threatenings are intermixed many gracious promises of mercy to the penitent, of the deliverance of the Jews out of their captivity, and some that have a plain reference to the kingdom of the Messiah. Among the Apocryphal writings an epistle is extant said to be written by Jeremiah to the captives in Babylon, warning them against the worship of idols, by exposing the vanity of idols and the folly of idolaters. It is in Baruch, ch. 6. But it is supposed not to be authentic; nor has it, I think, any thing like the life and spirit of Jeremiah's writings. It is also related concerning Jeremiah (2 Macc. 2:4) that, when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Chaldeans, he, by direction from God, took the ark and the altar of incense, and, carrying them to Mount Nebo lodged them in a hollow cave there and stopped the door; but some that followed him, and thought that they had marked the place, could not find it. He blamed them for seeking it, telling them that the place should be unknown till the time that God should gather his people together again. But I know not what credit is to be given to that story, though it is there said to be found in the records. We cannot but be concerned, in the reading of Jeremiah's prophecies, to find that they were so little regarded by the men of that generation; but let us make use of that as a reason why we should regard them the more; for they are written for our learning too, and for warning to us and to our land.

Matthew Henry: Jeremiah 2 (Chapter Introduction)

It is probable that this chapter was Jeremiah's first sermon after his ordination; and a most lively pathetic sermon it is as any we have is all the books of the prophets. Let him not say, " I cannot speak, for I am a child;" for, God having touched his mouth and put his words into it, none can speak better. The scope of the chapter is to show God's people their transgressions, even the house of Jacob their sins; it is all by way of reproof and conviction, that they might be brought to repent of their sins and so prevent the ruin that was coming upon them. The charge drawn up against them is very high, the aggravations are black, the arguments used for their conviction very close and pressing, and the expostulations very pungent and affecting. The sin which they are most particularly charged with here is idolatry, forsaking the true God, their own God, for other false gods. Now they are told, I. That this was ungrateful to God, who had been so kind to them (Jer 2:1-8). II. That it was without precedent, that a nation should change their god (Jer 2:9-13). III. That hereby they had disparaged and ruined themselves (Jer 2:14-19). IV. That they had broken their covenants and degenerated from their good beginnings (Jer 2:20, Jer 2:21). V. That their wickedness was too plain to be concealed and too bad to be excused (Jer 2:22, Jer 2:23, Jer 2:35). VI. That they persisted witfully and obstinately in it, and were irreclaimable and indefatigable in their idolatries (Jer 2:24, Jer 2:25, Jer 2:33, Jer 2:36). VII. That they shamed themselves by their idolatry and should shortly be made ashamed of it when they should find their idols unable to help them (Jer 2:26-29, Jer 2:37). VIII. That they had not been convinced and reformed by the rebukes of Providence that had been under (Jer 2:30). IX. That they had put a great contempt upon God (Jer 2:31, Jer 2:32). X. That with their idolatries they had mixed the most unnatural murders, shedding the blood of the poor innocents (Jer 2:34). Those hearts were hard indeed that were untouched and unhumbled when their sins were thus set in order before them. O that by meditating on this chapter we might be brought to repent of our spiritual idolatries, giving that place in our souls to the world and the flesh which should have been reserved for God only!

Constable: Jeremiah (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Title

The title of this book derives from its writer, the late seventh and early sixth-century Judean prophet Jeremiah. The book occupies the second position in the Latter Prophets section of the Hebrew Bible after Isaiah and before Ezekiel, which accounts for its position in the Septuagint and most modern translations.

The meaning of "Jeremiah" is not clear. It could mean "Yahweh founds or establishes," "Yahweh exalts," "Yahweh throws down," "Yahweh hurls," or "Yahweh loosens (the womb)."

Writer

The composition and structure of Jeremiah, discussed below, have led many scholars to conclude that an editor or editors (redactors) probably put the book in its final form. Many conservatives, however, believe that Jeremiah himself was responsible for the final form, though it is clear that the book went through several revisions before it reached its final canonical form. Jeremiah could even have written the last chapter, which describes events that took place about 25 years after the next latest events, since he would have been approximately 83 years old, assuming he was still alive. Clearly Jeremiah's secretary, Baruch, provided the prophet with much assistance in writing the material and possibly arranging it in its final form (36:17-18; 45:1). Baruch was to Jeremiah what Luke was to Paul: his companion, amanuensis, and biographer. The book bears marks of having been assembled by one person at one time.

"There is no satisfactory reason for doubting that Jeremiah himself was the author of the entire book."¹

The Book of Jeremiah tells us more about the prophet Jeremiah than any other prophetic book reveals about its writer. It is highly biographical and autobiographical.² We know more about his personality than that of any other prophet.

Jeremiah's hometown was Anathoth, a Levitical town in the territory of Benjamin three miles northeast of Jerusalem.³ Jeremiah's father, Hilkiah, was evidently a descendant of Abiathar, a descendant of Eli (1 Sam. 14:3). Thus Jeremiah had ancestral connections to Shiloh, where the tabernacle stood during the judges period of Israel's history (the amphictyony). Jeremiah referred to Shiloh in his Temple Sermon (7:12, 14; 26:6). Abiathar was the sole survivor of King Saul's massacre of the priests at Nob, also only a few miles northeast of Jerusalem (1 Sam. 22:20). Later Solomon exiled Abiathar to Anathoth, where Abiathar had property, because Abiathar had proved unfaithful to David (1 Kings 2:26). Jeremiah's father Hilkiah may have been the high priest who found the book of the Law in the temple during Josiah's reforms (1 Kings 2:26).⁴ Even though Jeremiah came from a priestly family (like Ezekiel and Zechariah), there is no indication that he ever underwent training for the priesthood or functioned as a priest.

Jeremiah's date of birth is a matter of dispute. Most scholars believe he was born about 643 B.C., one year before the end of King Manasseh's reign.⁵ He probably died in Egypt.

"A late, unattested tradition, mentioned by Tertullian, Jerome, and others, claims that the people of Tahpanhes [in Egypt] stoned Jeremiah to death."⁶

His call to the prophetic office came in 627 or 626 B.C. (1:2; 25:3) when he would have been about 20 years old.⁷ His ministry as a prophet may have extended over 40 years.⁸ He evidently exercised his ministry mainly during periods of crisis in Judah's history, though it is impossible to date some of his prophecies. His ministry involved prophesying about Judah and the other ancient Near Eastern nations of his time (1:10).

Judging by Jeremiah's autobiographical remarks and the narrative information about him in this book, his life was a sad one, one long martyrdom. He probably encountered more opposition from more enemies than any other prophet. Much of it stemmed from his message to his own people: unconditional surrender to Babylon.

"No braver or more tragic figure ever trod the stage of Israel's history than the prophet Jeremiah. . . .

"Jeremiah was hated, jeered at, ostracized (e.g., chs. 15:10f., 17; 18:18; 20:10), continually harassed, and more than once almost killed (e.g., chs. 11:18 to 12:6; 26; 36)."⁹

Jeremiah is the only prophet who recorded his own feelings as he ministered, which makes him both very interesting and very helpful to other ministers. Some authorities believe that his greatest contribution to posterity is his personality.

". . . by birth a priest; by grace a prophet; by the trials of life a bulwark for God's truth; by daily spiritual experience one of the greatest exponents of prophetic faith in his unique relation to God; by temperament gentle and timid, yet constantly contending against the forces of sin; and by natural desire a seeker after the love of a companion, his family, friends, and above all, his people--which were all denied him."¹⁰

"He was a weeping prophet to a wayward people."¹¹

There are many similarities between Jeremiah and Hosea. Hosea announced the fall of Samaria, and Jeremiah announced the fall of Jerusalem. Both prophets experienced much personal tragedy. In his ideas as well as in his vocabulary, Jeremiah demonstrates familiarity with Hosea's prophecies. There are also affinities with Job and the Psalter.

There are also remarkable parallels between Jeremiah and the Lord Jesus Christ. No other prophet bears as many striking similarities to the Savior, which makes him the most Christ-like of the prophets. The people of Jesus' day noted these similarities (Matt. 16:14). In both cases Jerusalem was about to fall, the temple would suffer destruction soon, the worship of Yahweh had become a formalistic husk, and there was need for emphasis on individual relationship with God. Both men had a message for Israel and the whole world. Both of them used nature quite extensively for illustrative purposes in their teaching. Both came from a high tradition: Jeremiah from a priestly prophetic heritage and Jesus from a divine royal position. Both were very conscious of their call from God. Both condemned the commercialism of temple worship in their day (7:11: Matt. 21:13). Their enemies charged both of them with political treason. Both experienced persecutions, trials, and imprisonments. Both foretold the destruction of the temple (7:14; Matt. 13:2). Both wept over Jerusalem (9:1; Luke 19:41). Both condemned the priests of their day. Both experienced rejection by members of their own families (12:6; John 1:11). Both were so tenderhearted that some Jewish leaders identified them with the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53. Both loved Israel deeply. Both were lonely (15:10; Isa. 53:3). And both enjoyed unusually intimate fellowship with God (20:7; John 11:41-42).¹²

"It has often been remarked that Jeremiah's life was finally a failure. He was alone for most of his ministry. It seemed that no one gave any heed to his words. He was dragged off finally to live his last days in exile against his own will. He was a failure as the world judges human achievement. But a more balanced assessment of him would be that his very words of judgment saved Israel's faith from disintegration, and his words of hope finally helped his people to gain hope in God's future for them."¹³

"The character of Jeremiah is also reflected in his writings. His speech is clear and simple, incisive and pithy, and, though generally speaking somewhat diffuse, yet ever rich in thought. If it lacks the lofty strain, the soaring flight of an Isaiah, yet it has beauties of its own. It is distinguished by a wealth of new imagery which is wrought out with great delicacy and deep feeling, and by a versatility that easily adapts itself to the most various objects, and by artistic clearness' (Ewald)."¹⁴

Historical Background

The biblical records of the times in which Jeremiah ministered are 2 Kings 21-25 and 2 Chronicles 33-36. His contemporary prophets were Zephaniah and Habakkuk before the Exile, and Ezekiel and Daniel after it began.

King Manasseh had been Judah's most ungodly king, but toward the end of his life he repented (2 Chron. 33:15-19). He was responsible for many of the evil conditions that marked Judah in Jeremiah's earliest years (cf. 15:4; 2 Kings 23:26). His long life was not a blessing for faithfulness, as his father Hezekiah's had been, but an instrument of chastening for Judah.

King Amon succeeded Manasseh and reigned two years (642-640 B.C.). Rather than perpetuating the repentant attitude that his father had demonstrated, Amon reverted to the policies of Manasseh's earlier reign and rebelled against Yahweh completely. This provoked some of his officials to assassinate him (2 Kings 21:23).

Josiah was eight years old when his father Amon died. He began reigning then and continued on the throne for 31 years (640-609 B.C.). Josiah was one of Judah's best kings and one of the four reforming kings of the Southern Kingdom. He began to seek the Lord when he was 16 years old and began initiating religious reforms when he was 20 (2 Chron. 34:3-7). Jeremiah received his call to minister in the thirteenth year of Josiah when the king was 21, namely, 627 B.C. (1:6). Josiah's reforms were more extensive than those of any of his predecessors. He began the major projects when he was 26. During these years Assyria was declining as a world power and Neo-Babylonia was not yet the dominant empire it soon became. One of Josiah's projects was the repairing of Solomon's temple (v. 5; cf. 12:4-16). During its renovation Hilkiah, the high priest and possibly Jeremiah's father, discovered the Mosaic Law, which had been lost for a long time (cf. 2 Kings 22:8). This discovery spurred a return to the system of worship that the Book of Deuteronomy specified (2 Kings 23). Josiah also did much to clear the land of idolatry, sacred prostitution, child sacrifice, and pagan altars not only in Judah but also in some formerly Israelite territory. He also reinstituted the Passover. Unfortunately for Judah, Josiah felt compelled to travel to Megiddo to try and block Pharaoh Necho II from advancing north to assist the Assyrians in resisting the westward expanding Babylonians. Josiah died at Megiddo in 609 B.C. at the age of 39. His death was a tragic loss for Judah.

Some of Jeremiah's prophecies date from Josiah's reign.¹⁵ Zephaniah also ministered in Judah during the reign of Josiah as did the prophetess Huldah (2 Kings 22:14-20).

Three of Josiah's sons and one of his grandsons ruled Judah after his death. The first of these, though he was the second son, was Jehoahaz who ruled for only three months in 609 B.C. The Judean people favored Jehoahaz, but Pharaoh Necho, who by slaying Josiah gained control over Judah, found him uncooperative. Therefore, Pharaoh deported Jehoahaz to Egypt as a prisoner where he died (22:10-12). God gave Jeremiah a few prophecies during this king's brief reign.

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Jehoahaz's older brother Jehoiakim succeeded him on Judah's throne, thanks to Pharaoh Necho. He reigned for 11 years (609-598 B.C.). Jehoiakim was a weak king who changed allegiances between Egypt and Babylon whenever he thought a change might be to Judah's advantage. During his tenure Prince Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon defeated the allied Egyptian and Assyrian forces at Carchemish thus establishing Babylonian supremacy in the ancient Near East (605 B.C.). Shortly thereafter King Nebuchadnezzar, as he had become, invaded Palestine, conquered some cities, and took some of the nobles, including Daniel, as exiles to Babylon (Dan. 1:1-3). Jehoiakim refused to follow Jeremiah's counsel to submit to the Babylonians. Instead he showed his contempt for the prophet by burning his prophecies (ch. 36). Jeremiah despised this king for his wickedness (22:18-19; 26:20-23; 36). Jehoiakim rebelled against Babylon in 601 B.C., so the Babylonians deposed him and took him to Babylon (2 Chron. 36:6). Later they allowed him to return to Jerusalem where he died in 561 B.C. (cf. 22:19). Several of Jeremiah's prophecies apparently date from Jehoiakim's reign. Habakkuk probably also ministered at this time, as the content of his book suggests.

Jehoiakim's son Jehoiachin succeeded his father but only reigned for three months (598-597 B.C.). During that time Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem and carried off a large portion of the city's population (in 597 B.C.). The king was evil, and Jeremiah predicted that none of his sons would rule over the nation (22:30). He ended his days in Babylon enjoying the favor of the Babylonian king Evilmerodach (52:31-34).

Zedekiah was the third son of Josiah to rule Judah, and he too ruled under Nebuchadnezzar's sovereignty (597-586 B.C.). The Babylonian monarch summoned Zedekiah to Babylon in 593 B.C. (51:59), but he rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar by making a treaty with Pharaoh Hophra (589-570 B.C.) under pressure from Judean nationalists (chs. 37-38). This resulted in the final siege of Jerusalem in 588 and its fall two years later in 586 B.C. (ch. 39).¹⁶ The Babylonians took Zedekiah captive to Riblah in Syria where they slew his sons and put out his eyes. He died later in Babylon. Since Jeremiah advocated surrender to the Babylonians, Nebuchadnezzar allowed him to choose where he wanted to live when Jerusalem fell, and the prophet elected to stay where he was.

Shortly after he defeated Zedekiah, Nebuchadnezzar set up a pro-Babylonian Judean named Gedaliah as his governor (40:5-6). But a group of Jewish nationalists under Ishmael's leadership assassinated Gedaliah within the year (586 B.C.; 41:2). This ill-advised act resulted in the rebels having to flee to Egypt for safety from Nebuchadnezzar. They forced Jeremiah to accompany them against his will (chs. 42-43). There the prophet evidently spent the remaining years of his life and produced his final prophecies.¹⁷

Important Dates for Jeremiah
Years	Events	References
643	Probable date of Jeremiah's birth
640	Josiah becomes king of Judah at age 8	2 Chron. 34:1
628	Josiah begins his reforms	2 Chron. 34:3
627	Jeremiah begins his ministry	Jer. 1:2; 25:3
626	Nabopolassar founds the Neo-Babylonian Empire
622	The book of the Law discovered in the temple	2 Chron. 34:8, 14
612	The fall of Nineveh, Assyria's capitol
609	Josiah killed in battle by Egyptians at Megiddo	2 Chron. 35:20-25
	Jehoahaz reigns over Judah for 3 months	2 Chron. 36:1-3
	Jehoiakim made king of Judah by Pharaoh Necho	2 Chron. 36:4
605	Nebuchadnezzar defeats the Egyptians at Carchemish	Jer. 46:2
	The first deportation of exiles (including Daniel) to Babylon	Dan. 1:1-7
604	Jehoiakim burns Jeremiah's first scroll	Jer. 36
601	Jehoiakim rebels against Babylon	2 Kings 24:1
598	Jehoiakim is deposed and dies	2 Chron. 36:3
	Jehioachin reigns over Judah for 3 months	2 Kings 24:8
597	The second deportation of exiles (including Jehoiachin) to Babylon	2 Kings 24:12-16
	Zedekiah made king of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar	2 Kings 24:17
593	Zedekiah summoned to Babylon	Jer. 51:59
588	Zedekiah is besieged in Jerusalem for treachery	Jer. 52:3-4
586	Fall of Jerusalem	Jer. 39
	Gedaliah appointed governor of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar	Jer. 40:5-6
	Gedaliah assassinated by Ishmael	Jer. 41:2
	Judean refugees flee to Egypt taking Jeremiah with them	Jer. 42-43
581	The third deportation of exiles to Babylon	Jer. 52:30
568	Nebuchadnezzar invades Egypt	Jer. 43:8-13; 46:13-26
561	Jehoiachin released from prison in Babylon	Jer. 52:31-34
539	Fall of Babylon to Cyrus the Persian	Dan. 5:30
538	Cyrus issues his decree allowing the Jews to return to Palestine	Ezra 1:1-4

Date

As has already been pointed out, Jeremiah gave the prophecies and composed the narratives that constitute this book at various times during his long ministry. The date at which the book reached the state in which it is today is debatable. Most scholars believe that editors continued to add and rearrange the material long after Jeremiah's day. However, the tradition that Jeremiah was responsible for the book is old and has encouraged conservative scholars to view it as the product of the prophet himself or perhaps his scribe Baruch. If Jeremiah was the final editor of the work, as well as its writer, he completed this editorial task after his last historical reference and before his death. The last historical reference is Jehoiachin's release from captivity in Babylon (561 B.C.; 52:31-34). We do not know when Jeremiah died, but if he was born about 643 B.C., he probably did not live much beyond 560 B.C. Some scholars believe Jeremiah wrote this account himself and or that Baruch provided it. Others believe the writer of the Book of Kings added it to the collections of Jeremiah's writings.¹⁸ One writer speculated that the final canonical form of the book was in circulation not later than 520 B.C.¹⁹ Another believed it was available shortly after Jeremiah's death, which he guessed was about 586 B.C.²⁰

Audience

Jeremiah ministered to the people of Judah during the last days of the monarchy and the early part of the captivity. Almost all of his ministry took place in Jerusalem. He spoke to kings, priests, and prophets, as well as the ordinary citizens, and he delivered oracles against foreign nations.

"The book of Jeremiah and the book of Lamentations show how God looks at a culture which knew Him and deliberately turned away."²¹

Purpose

Jeremiah's purpose was to call his hearers to repentance in view of God's judgment on Judah, which would come soon from an army from the north (chs. 2-45). Judgment was coming because God's people had forsaken Yahweh and had given themselves to idolatry. Jeremiah spoke more about repentance than any other prophet. He also assured his audience that God had a future for Israel and Judah (chs. 30-33). Once it became clear that the people would not repent, he advocated submission to Babylon to minimize the destruction that was inevitable. As God's prophetic spokesman, he also uttered oracles against the nations that opposed God's chosen people (chs. 46-51).

"The theme of this prophet consists largely in a stern warning to Judah to turn from idolatry and sin to avoid the catastrophe of exile."²²

Theological Emphases

The Book of Jeremiah is not theologically organized in the sense that it develops a certain theological emphasis as it unfolds, as Isaiah does. Rather it presents certain theological truths in greater or lesser degree throughout its 52 chapters. The dominant theological emphases are as follows.

The prophet paid more attention to God and the Israelites than to any other subjects of revelation. His appreciation for God as the Lord of all creation is noteworthy. In contrast to Isaiah, Micah, Zechariah, and Daniel, Jeremiah did not reveal much about the coming Messiah, though he did record some significant messianic predictions. A coming revealer would outshine the ark of the covenant (3:14-17), and the fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant promises would come (33:14-26).

Regarding the Israelites, Jeremiah stressed the fact that immorality always accompanies idolatry. Israel's present problems were the result of her past and present apostasy. The priests, Jeremiah asserted, were primarily responsible for the degeneration of worship from spiritual to merely formal, though several false prophets also misled the people. The Judahites could not escape going into captivity because they refused to repent. Therefore, they needed to accept the inevitable and not resist the Babylonians. Jerusalem and Judah would suffer destruction, the Davidic kings would not rule (for some time), and the Israelites would lose their land (temporarily). But there would be a return from exile (25:11; 29:10). Israel had hope of a glorious future in view of God's faithfulness to His promises (32:1-15). In the distant future, Israel would return in penitence to the Lord (32:37-40). Messiah would rule over her (23:5-8).

". . . Jeremiah placed an enormous emphasis on the sins and misdeeds of Israel. . . .

"The evil deeds in which Israel was involved were of two broad classes--the worship of false gods, and the perpetration of personal and social sins of an ethical and moral kind."²³

"The theology of the book of Jeremiah may be summarized as follows: God's judgment would fall on Judah because she had broken His covenant."²⁴

The nations were God's agents in executing His will, particularly Nebuchadnezzar (27:6). But Babylon would fall (chs. 50-51). The nations, as well as Israel, needed to demonstrate righteousness (chs. 46-51). God had a concern for the nations as well as for His people (29:1-14). In the distant future, the remnant of the nations would enjoy blessing from the Lord (3:17; 16:19).

There is also a strong emphasis on the biblical covenants in Jeremiah, particularly the Mosaic and New Covenants. Jeremiah viewed Israel as the chosen people of God adopted by Him for a special relationship with Himself and for a special purpose in the world. The Mosaic Covenant was pure grace, and Yahweh had made it with a redeemed people. It involved promises from God and responsibilities for the Israelites that required trust, obedience, and holiness. Obedience would result in blessing from God, and disobedience would yield divine cursing. The prophet knew the Mosaic Law and compared the conduct of the people to what it required.²⁵ Jeremiah anticipated the appearing of the promised Davidic Messiah and the fulfillment of the kingdom promises that God had made to David. He also predicted that God would make a new covenant with the Israelites sometime in the future that would involve new provisions and conditions for living (31:31-34). It would replace the old Mosaic Covenant and would feature personal relationship with God to an extent never experienced before.

"Probably the outstanding emphasis in Jeremiah's ministry was the priority of the spiritual over everything else. He saw how secondary the temporal features of Judah's faith were. . . .

"The lasting value of Jeremiah's book lies not only in the allusions (between forty and fifty of them) in the NT (over half are in Revelation) but also in its being a wonderful handbook for learning the art of having fellowship with God."²⁶

Composition

The present canonical form of the book was probably the result of a long and complex process of collection. The Book of Psalms also underwent compilation in a similar fashion over many years. The compilation is not chronological, but it did occur in stages.

"Precisely how the final form of the prophecy arose is unknown."²⁷

In some cases key words link units of material together. There is also some grouping of subject matter according to genre within the larger sections of the book.²⁸

The attempt to identify the original sources of material in Bible books is a worthy subject of study, but the purpose of these notes is to expound the text.²⁹ The book itself indicates that King Jehoiakim destroyed some of Jeremiah's earlier written prophecies and that Baruch rewrote them and added more to form another collection (ch. 36). This information explains to some extent the anthological structure of the book and suggests that Jeremiah, Baruch, and perhaps others added even more prophecies as time passed and that the final product is what we have.

"It is clear that the book assumed its present form either very late in the prophet's lifetime, or more probably after his death."³⁰

Genre

About half of Jeremiah is poetry and half prose. But poetry and prose appear side by side in many sections of the book; several literary units contain both forms of composition.

Scholars have identified three types of literature (genre) in Jeremiah: poetic sayings or oracles (so-called Type A material), prose narratives that are largely biographical and historical (so-called Type B material), and prose speeches or discourses (so-called Type C material).³¹

Several generations of scholars have held that the poetic oracles toward the first part of the book represent Jeremiah's original sayings, and the historical and biographical narratives that follow were the product of Baruch, Jeremiah's scribe. This view, while a common one, contains serious problems, and many competent authorities have pointed out the inconsistencies of this position. I mention it here because it is a common view, not because I accept it. I do not.

Structure

Like most other prophetic books of the Old Testament, Jeremiah is a collection of oracles and other materials. It is an anthology of Jeremiah's speeches and writings, really an anthology of anthologies. It is not like a novel that one may read from start to finish discovering that it unfolds in a logical fashion as it goes.

"No commentator, ancient or modern, has seriously posited a chronological arrangement of its prophecies."³²

This book, even more than most of the other prophetic books, strikes the western mind initially as not following any consistently logical order, especially within the body of the book. The difficulty that students of Jeremiah have had in discovering its underlying plan is clear from the fact that commentators have offered so many different outlines of it.³³

"When we come to inquire whether any principles of arrangement can be observed in the book of Jeremiah, we have to admit that any consistent principles escape us."³⁴

". . . it is often difficult to see why certain passages occur at precisely the point where they do occur."³⁵

Distinctive Features

In addition to the lack of a clear organizing plan, Jeremiah is quite repetitive. The repetition is for emphasis, no doubt, and many very similar passages occur two and even three times.

The last chapter is unique because someone must have written it long after the rest of the book. The options are that Jeremiah or Baruch wrote it or that some other writer added it later. There is no way to tell for sure who wrote it or when, but it's purpose seems clear enough. It provides hope at the end of a record of discouraging circumstances.

The biographical and autobiographical sections of the book are also distinctive. No other prophet wrote as much about himself and his experiences as Jeremiah did, and no other prophet let us into his head and his heart as much as he did by sharing how he thought and felt.

Jeremiah used object lessons to communicate spiritual truth more than the other prophets. He made his prophecies concrete and vivid by this means. He did not delight to paint word pictures as much as Isaiah did, but he did acts and spoke of real situations far more than that earlier prophet did.

Text

The history of the textual transmission of Jeremiah is unusual. The Septuagint (Greek) translation, made in the third and second centuries B.C. in Alexandria, Egypt, is about one-eighth shorter than the Masoretic Text (the Hebrew text formalized in the fifth century A.D. that is the basis for the modern Hebrew Bible and our English translations). In addition to its being shorter, the arrangement of material in the book is in a different order in several places. The Septuagint version of Jeremiah differs from the Hebrew more widely than is true of any other Old Testament book. There are omissions, additions, transpositions, alterations, and substitutions.³⁶

Probably the Septuagint translators worked from a different version of Jeremiah than the one that was the basis for the Masoretic Text.³⁷ The Septuagint was the Bible of most of the early Christians, especially those who lived outside Palestine. Which version is more reliable, the shorter one that they used (and quoted in the New Testament) or the longer one that we have? Most conservative scholars believe that the Masoretic Text has a solid history and is more reliable than the Septuagint. The differences between these two versions are not significant in terms of theology. We do not have contradictions between what the New Testament writers quoted as being from Jeremiah and what we read in our English translations of Jeremiah.³⁸

Message³⁹

The reader of Jeremiah must have a knowledge of the times in which this prophet lived and ministered to appreciate the message of this book. This is more important for understanding Jeremiah than it is for understanding any other prophetic book.

Jeremiah lived in days of darkness and disaster. He ministered about a century after Isaiah had finished prophesying. The Northern Kingdom was no more; it had ceased to exist with the Assyrian invasion of 722 B.C. Only the Southern Kingdom of Judah remained.

Two strong nations greatly affected life in Judah when Jeremiah began his ministry: Egypt on the southwest, and Assyria on the northeast. Judah was the jelly in this sandwich and found herself pressed on both sides. Instead of looking to God for their security, the people looked either to Egypt or to Assyria. There were two parties in Jeremiah's day: the pro-Egyptian party and the pro-Assyrian party. Each vied with the other trying to gain supporters for alliances with their particular favorite superpower, trying to outwit their opponents and trick their enemy.

The internal condition of Judah was the result of 52 years of rule by the apostate King Manasseh who reacted to godly King Hezekiah's trust in Yahweh.

Manasseh, and King Amon who ruled after him for two years, set up pagan altars all over Judah. These kings encouraged idolatry of every sort, even in the Jerusalem temple. The people departed farther and farther from the Lord. It was a condition very much like the one in North America today.

The next king was Josiah. Josiah tried to turn the people back to the Lord, but his reforms were more external than internal. The people just did not want to submit to Yahweh. They had gone their own way for so long that they viewed following the Mosaic Law as a step backward rather than forward. Jeremiah began to minister during Josiah's reign. Unfortunately Josiah died prematurely, so his reforms did not last very long or have much effect.

The four kings who followed Josiah, the last four in Judah's history, were all weak men who lacked spiritual conviction. They just played politics and tried to win Judah's security through political intrigue and alliances. Three of these sad rulers were sons of Josiah: Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah. The fourth was Josiah's grandson, Jehoiachin, the son of Jehoiakim. The last of these kings was Zedekiah, the most spineless of them all. He was a chameleon, a double-minded man who was unstable in all his ways. Jeremiah ministered during the reigns of these four kings until Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians in 586 B.C., and he ministered beyond that from Egypt.

Throughout Jeremiah's entire ministry he was never blessed to see the people of Judah turn back to God. Repentance was one of his greatest pleas, but the kings, priests, false prophets, and ordinary citizens did not return to the Lord. He did not check the deterioration of his nation. He was very unpopular in his day because he was always preaching to the people to do the opposite of what they wanted to do. Even after the fall of the nation the Judahites proved unresponsive to his preaching. There was no encouraging revival in his day, as there was in Isaiah's day with the appearance of King Hezekiah. Things just kept going from bad to worse.

The meaning of "Jeremiah" is not clear. It could mean "Yahweh founds or establishes," "Yahweh exalts," "Yahweh throws down," "Yahweh hurls," or "Yahweh loosens." All of these meanings reflect aspects of Jeremiah's ministry as a prophet. He announced that Yahweh founds or establishes those who trust in Him rather than trusting in other people or nations. He announced that Yahweh eventually exalts those whom He has chosen and that He throws down and humbles those who disregard Him. He also announced that Yahweh hurls into captivity people who depart from Him and loosens from their captivity those whom He has disciplined.

Just as God had foreordained Jeremiah to his ministry (1:5), so He had foreordained Israel to a royal priestly ministry on the earth (Exod. 19:5-6). Just as Jeremiah felt inadequate for his ministry (1:6), so Israel was inadequate to fulfill her calling without divine enablement. And just as Jeremiah received divine enablement for his ministry (1:7-8), so Israel received divine enablement for hers.

What was true for Jeremiah on the personal level and for Israel on the national level is also true for Christians on the personal level and for the church on the corporate level.

The Book of Jeremiah also reveals more about the person of the prophet than any other prophetic book. Jeremiah shared his life with His Lord, and the Lord shared the record of Jeremiah's life with the reader. Four things characterized Jeremiah: his simplicity, his sensitivity, his strength, and his spirituality.

We see the first indication of Jeremiah's simplicity in his response to the Lord's call when he was a teenager. He realized that he was an inadequate child (1:7). He never lost that sense of inadequacy. He was poor in spirit in that he sensed his own personal lack of resources to carry out the task God had given him (cf. Matt. 5:3).

We see his sensitivity in the way he shrunk from his work. He confessed to his Lord how much he disliked having to proclaim messages of judgment to the people he loved. He felt the pain of the prophecies he delivered. He mourned over the fate of his hardhearted and stubborn fellow Judahites (cf. Matt. 5:4).

We see Jeremiah's strength in his willingness to stand alone against the popular opinions and opinion makers of his day. He always delivered the whole message that God had given him to proclaim, and he never stopped speaking what God told him to say. He was persecuted for the sake of righteousness (cf. Matt. 5:10). His contemporaries reviled him, persecuted him, and said all kinds of evil things against him falsely (Matt. 5:11). Nevertheless through it all Jeremiah followed God faithfully, and undoubtedly his reward in heaven will be great (Matt. 5:12).

No prophet in the Old Testament was more like our Lord Jesus Christ than Jeremiah. He faithfully represented the true King of Israel, Yahweh, when the Judahites rejected His authority and neglected His grace. He was God's representative on the earth when people were acting like there was no Sovereign in heaven. God knew him and chose him before his birth, equipped him by giving him His word, led him to practice a simple and solitary lifestyle, strengthened him to love his people, enabled him to oppose the apostasy of his day, and preserved his life until his work was done.

One of the great values of the Book of Jeremiah is that it reveals how God behaves when His people fail Him and depart from Him.

When His people fail Him and depart from Him, God judges their sin. As Isaiah emphasizes the salvation of God, Jeremiah stresses the judgment of God. God enabled Jeremiah to see what the Judahites did not see, namely that all the bad things that were happening to them were divine discipline on them for their apostasy. The people interpreted these calamities as the result of their failure to continue worshipping the Queen of Heaven and their other pagan idols (44:18). Jeremiah saw that sin leads to death. He came to appreciate the devastating effects of sin. Ever since the Fall Satan has been convincing people that they can sin with impunity. Jeremiah shows that the sin of God's people will find us out, and when it does there is a terrible price to pay.

Jeremiah also reveals how human sin causes great suffering for God. It breaks His heart when His people sin. Not only did God explain to Jeremiah how sin hurt Him, but Jeremiah reflected God's pain over sin with his own tears and terror at the prospect of the fall of Jerusalem and its attending horrors. We see God's attitude toward the people in the prophet's attitude.

Jeremiah also reveals that there is life beyond sin, there is victory over sin. In the prophet's life we see how God blessed him and preserved His faithful servant in the midst of what we might compare to the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City. In Jeremiah's messages to Judah, Israel, and the nations we see how bright the distant future is beyond the present judgment for sin. God's plans for humankind are plans for blessing ultimately. Judgment is His immediate response to sin, but blessing is His ultimate purpose. The politicians in Jeremiah's day blamed the nation's troubles on the nations around them. Jeremiah blamed them on the internal condition of Judah herself.

We need voices and lives like Jeremiah's today calling people to recognize the fact that all ruin and loss and national decay are due to forgetting God who lifts up or breaks down according to how we relate to Him. Though Jeremiah lived 2, 600 years ago, his voice continues to challenge us today. We appear to be ministering in a context very similar to Jeremiah's. The study of his life and ministry encourages and motivates us to remain faithful. He enables us to understand what Christ-like ministry in such a context looks like.

What is the message of Jeremiah? Jeremiah teaches us that God's judgment falls when people break His covenant. There are constant references to Judah's covenant unfaithfulness to her sovereign suzerain. Judgment is inevitable unless there is repentance. But when there is repentance, God is rich in mercy. One of Jeremiah's favorite words was shub, meaning "return." God and he held out the possibility of return and release from judgment as long as possible. However, as with Pharaoh, repentance is not always possible when one resists Yahweh continually (cf. Heb. 6:4-6). It was not possible eventually for Judah.

There are at least three abiding lessons of this book.

Sin brings destruction. No policy can outmaneuver God. National rebellion is national ruin. Sin brings with it its own destruction and retribution.

Sin wounds the heart of God. He weeps over the doom of a city and its people. He does not delight in bringing devastation and ruin, and neither should His servants.

The ultimate victory is with God. He made again the vessel that He destroyed because of its flaws. The stump of David will sprout. Though the last Davidic king died in exile, God promised that another Davidic King would emerge (23:5; 30:9). There is hope of a new covenant and enabling grace that will replace the old covenant that no one could keep (31:31-34).

Constable: Jeremiah (Outline)

Outline

I. Introduction ch. 1

A. The introduction of Jeremiah 1:1-3

B. The call of Jeremiah 1:4-19

1. The promise of divine enablement 1:4-10

2. Two confirming visions 1:11-19

II. Prophecies about Judah chs. 2-45

A. Warnings of judgment on Judah and Jerusalem chs. 2-25

1. Warnings of coming punishment because of Judah's guilt chs. 2-6

2. Warnings about apostasy and its consequences chs. 7-10

3. Warnings in view of present conditions 11:1-15:9

4. Warnings in view of Judah's hardheartedness 15:10-25:38

B. Controversies concerning false prophets chs. 26-29

1. Conflict with the people ch. 26

2. Conflict with the false prophets in Jerusalem chs. 27-28

3. Conflict with the false prophets in exile ch. 29

C. The Book of Consolation chs. 30-33

1. The restoration of all Israel chs. 30-31

2. The restoration of Judah and Jerusalem chs. 32-33

D. Incidents surrounding the fall of Jerusalem chs. 34-45

1. Incidents before the fall of Jerusalem chs. 34-36

2. Incidents during the fall of Jerusalem chs. 37-39

3. Incidents after the fall of Jerusalem chs. 40-45

III. Prophecies about the nations chs. 46-51

A. The oracle against Egypt ch. 46

B. The oracle against the Philistines ch. 47

C. The oracle against Moab ch. 48

D. The oracle against Ammon 49:1-6

E. The oracle against Edom 49:7-22

F. The oracle against Damascus 49:23-27

G. The oracle against the Arab tribes 49:28-33

H. The oracle against Elam 49:34-39

I. The oracle against Babylon chs. 50-51

IV. Conclusion ch. 52.

A. The fall of Jerusalem and the capture of Zedekiah 52:1-16

B. The sacking of the temple 52:17-23

C. The numbers deported to Babylon 52:24-30

D. The release of Jehoiachin from prison 52:31-34

Constable: Jeremiah

Jeremiah

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_____. The Rise of Babylon: Sign of the End Times. Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 1991.

_____. "Waistbands, Water, and the Word of God: Where Did Jeremiah Bury His Girdle?" In Integrity of Heart, Skillfulness of Hands: Biblical and Leadership Studies in Honor of Donald K. Campbell, pp. 62-81. Edited by Charles H. Dyer and Roy B. Zuck. Chicago: Moody Press, 1994.

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_____. "Jeremiah 31:22: Proverb, Promise, or Prophecy?" Bibliotheca Sacra 123:492 (October 1996): 315-24, and 124:493 (January 1967):16-21.

Freeman, Hobart E. An Introduction to the Old Testament Prophets. Chicago: Moody Press, 1968.

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_____. Jeremiah and Lamentations: An Introduction and Commentary. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries series. Leicester, Eng. and Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter-Varsity Press, 1973.

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Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

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Haydock: Jeremiah (Book Introduction)

THE PROPHECY OF JEREMIAS.

INTRODUCTION.

Jeremias was a priest, a native of Anathoth, a priestly city, in the tribe of Benjamin, and was sanctified from his mother's womb to be a prophet of God; which office he began to execute when he was yet a child in age. He was in his whole life, according to the signification of his name, great before the Lord, and a special figure of Jesus Christ, in the persecutions he underwent for discharging his duty, in his charity for his persecutors, and in the violent death he suffered at their hands; it being an ancient tradition of the Hebrews, that he was stoned to death by the remnant of the Jews who had retired into Egypt, (Challoner) at Taphnes. His style is plaintive, (Worthington) like that of Simonides, (Calmet) and not so noble as that of Isaias and Osee. (St. Jerome) --- He was the prophet of the Gentiles, as well as of the Jews, predicting many things which befell both, and particularly the liberation of the latter, the year of the world 3485, after the seventy years' captivity, dating from the year of the world 3415, (Calmet) or 3398, the 4th of Joakim. (Usher) (Chap. xxv.) (Haydock) --- He began to prophesy when he was very young, the year of the world 3375, in the 13th year of Josias, (Calmet) before that prince had brought his reformation to any great perfection. (Haydock)

Gill: Jeremiah (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO JEREMIAH

The title of the book in the Vulgate Latin version is, "the Prophecy of Jeremiah"; in the Syriac and Arabic versions, "the Prophecy of the Prophet Jeremiah". According to a tradition of the Jews ^a, this book stands the first of the Prophets, the order of which is, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the twelve. Kimchi makes mention of it in a preface to his comment on this book; and Dr. Lightfoot from hence concludes, that this is the reason why a passage in Zechariah is cited under the name of Jeremy, Mat 27:9, because he standing first in the volume of the Prophets gave name to the whole; just as the book of Psalms, being the first of the Hagiographa, they are called the Psalms from it, Luk 24:44. The name of the writer of this book, Jeremiah, signifies, "the Lord shall exalt", or "be exalted"; or, "exalting the Lord"; being composed of ירם, "he shall exalt", and יה, "Jehovah", according to Hillerus ^b. Though others ^c take it to be a composition of יה, and ירמה, "the Lord shall cast down"; as he did his enemies, and also himself, he being greatly afflicted; and which suits with the argument of his book, foretelling the casting away of the people of the Jews. His style of writing, according to the opinion of Jerom ^d, is more rustic than that of Isaiah and some other prophets, and which he attributes to his being born and brought up in a country village; and Abarbinel to his age, being a child when he began to prophesy. The duration of his prophesying was forty years and upwards. He began to prophesy in the thirteenth year of Josiah's reign; in 3375 A.M. or before the era of Christ 629, according both to Bishop Usher ^e and Mr. Whiston ^f, and the Universal History ^g; and according to Mr. Bedford ^h 627. If any credit can be given to Epiphanius ⁱ, or to the writer that bears his name, he was stoned to death by the people at Taphnas in Egypt, and was buried where Pharaoh dwelt. Abulpharagius, an Arabic writer ^k, says, that he went to Egypt, where some of the Jews took him and put him into a well, and afterwards took him out and stoned him, so that he died, and he was buried in Egypt; and was from thence removed by Alexander, in his time, to Alexandria, and buried there. And both Tertullian ^l and Jerom ^m affirm that he was stoned by the people. This prophecy contains several discourses delivered to the people of the Jews; charging them with many sins they were guilty of; exhorting them to repentance; threatening them with the destruction of their city and temple, and with captivity in Babylon; and comforting the saints, not only with a promise of deliverance from thence, but of spiritual redemption by the Messiah. And it also has in it several predictions of judgments upon other nations; and gives a particular account of the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the carrying of the Jews captive into Babylon; which he lived to see, as the fulfilment of his prophecies.

Gill: Jeremiah 2 (Chapter Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO JEREMIAH 2

This chapter contains the prophet's message from the Lord to the people of the Jews; in which they are reminded of their former favours, in order to aggravate their sins and transgressions they were chargeable with; to show their ingratitude and unkindness, and to bring them to a conviction and acknowledgment of their iniquities, without which punishment would be inflicted on them. The preface to this message is in Jer 2:1, and the discourse begins with an account of their former state and condition when they came out of Egypt; what kindness was shown them by the Lord, and what was returned to him by them; what they were to him, and how much regarded by him, Jer 2:2 and so far were they from being injured by him, that might cause them to depart from him, which they are desired to give attention to, that they were followed with various instances of goodness, which are particularly enumerated; and yet no notice was taken of them, neither by people, priests, pastors, and prophets, who were guilty of the grossest ignorance and wickedness, Jer 2:4, wherefore the Lord determines to plead with them and theirs; and charges them with such idolatry as was not to be found among the Gentiles, Jer 1:9 the heavens are called upon to be astonished at it; and the reason given for it, the ingratitude and folly of this people, Jer 2:12 in order to reclaim them, the Lord by the prophet proceeds to observe to them the corrections and chastisement they had already endured, being brought into bondage, their land wasted, cities burnt, and their glory taken from them; all which were owing to their revoltings and backslidings, and by which they might see what an evil and bitter thing sin is in its effects, Jer 2:14 and again reminds them of former favours; how that he loosed them from their yoke and bonds, when they promised to transgress no more, and yet did more and more; how he had raised them from a right seed, and planted them a noble vine, and yet they were sadly degenerated, and were guilty of such crimes as were not to be removed by anything done by them, Jer 2:20, and notwithstanding all this, they had the impudence to deny that they were tainted with idolatry, when they had been so guilty of it in the valley of Hinnom, and elsewhere; and were comparable to the lustful dromedary and wild ass, and so fond of strange gods, that they thirsted after them, and were resolved to follow them, Jer 2:23 and yet the time would come when all ranks of men among them would be ashamed of their worship of stocks and stones, and in the time of their trouble call upon the Lord to save them, when they would be sent to their gods, who were as numerous as their cities, Jer 2:26 wherefore it was in vain to plead their innocence, when they were all so guilty, and had received correction without amendment, and had even slain the prophets of the Lord, Jer 2:29 and then the Lord again upbraids them with their ingratitude to him, who had been so good and kind to them; with their forgetfulness of him, illustrated by a maid's not forgetting her ornaments, and a bride her attire; with their artful methods to entice others to idolatry, and with their shedding of innocent blood; and yet, after all this, they asserted their innocence, and affirmed they had never sinned, Jer 2:31, for all which sentence is pronounced against them, and punishment is threatened them, Jer 2:36.